Ophelia
by hipsbeforehands
Summary: After a freak accident results in a surprising turn of events, Walt and Vic are left reeling. Then Vic disappears, and when weeks drag into months, Walt has no choice but to go after his best deputy...even if that means chasing her all the way to Philadelphia. His arrival, however, will result in some shocking revelations for both of them. [Walt/Vic] - Work In Progress
1. Chapter 1

Vic's boots crunched over the freshly fallen snow as she stomped her way across the pristine expanse of Walt's front yard. He hadn't been answering his phone for the last few hours and Cady, who was currently aggrieved with a hellacious case of walking pneumonia, was nearly beside herself with worry. There was a winter storm raging through the area and everyone in Durant was pretty much hunkered down for the duration, and although he'd been known to disregard phone calls from time to time, his only child seemed convinced that this time something was truly wrong. Vic, who had spent the last few months attempting to ensure that Walt Longmire and his whereabouts were _not_ on her list of priorities, had effectively managed to distract and placate her friend until about forty-five minutes ago when the sun went down and Walt still hadn't returned the younger Longmire's calls.

It was then that her own sense of unease began to unfurl deep in her belly.

Walt knew that Cady was sick, and Vic knew him well enough to know that he would not purposefully allow his daughter to worry about his whereabouts in her current condition, which meant he had not received the numerous messages she'd left on his answering machine.

Vic trudged through the calf-deep snow drift near Walt's front porch and refused to acknowledge the small knot of anxiety that had solidified in her gut.

 _Damnable man was probably passed out in a pile of empty Rainier cans_ , she chastised herself, silently.

Reigning in her temper, Vic stomped her feet on the welcome mat just outside the front door, more to stimulate heat into her frigid extremities than to dispel excess snow. She had no intention of entering that cabin. She hadn't been back there since the day she'd been called to the scene of a "disturbance" at the out-of-the-way little abode.

Seeing Donna Monahan in Walt's living room that day, in a questionable state of dress, no less, had been enough to dissuade her from ever wanting to set foot in the place again. Even now, months later, she had to tamp down the bitterness and anger that readily bubbled to the surface as she recalled the look on his face when she'd stepped through the remains of what had once been his front door.

He'd looked guilty. Which meant all his clueless guile was an act used to cover up the simple truth.

He knew exactly how she felt about him.

He just either couldn't, or more probably _wouldn't,_ acknowledge it.

She took a deep breath to ease the sudden pressure in her chest and blew it out slowly, willing the hurt and anger to leave her body. Her breath was visible in the cold night air, and she imagined the ache within her evaporating into the darkness along with the fading vapor.

Since that day with Dr. Monahan, she and Walt had maintained a level of civility, but things had never been the same between them. At best, they functioned at work, and they avoided each other at all cost everywhere else. If Vic came home to Cady's and Walt was there, he was just stopping by. If Walt stopped by The Red Pony and Vic was there, she was on her way out. She'd added an extra mile-and-a-half to her usual run just so she could avoid the possibility of him passing her on the way to his favorite fishing spot. She knew there were things she needed to say to him if she ever hoped to get on firm ground with him again, but she honestly hadn't decided yet if it was worth it or not. She still wasn't entirely sure she was going to stay in Wyoming, and if she decided to go, then what was the point?

Yet, here she was.

She'd like to think that, left to her own devices, she wouldn't be out here tonight. Cady had been a good friend to her, though, especially these past few months, and she owed her at least this much. The sweet-natured redhead had given Vic a place to stay when she'd needed one, had become her friend when she'd needed one, and had even given her a kick in the ass when she'd needed one.

 _"Don't let my dad's hang-ups tie you up in knots, Vic. It's not you, it's him. Trust me."_

She'd offered this advice from the doorway of Vic's temporary bedroom, where she'd stood observing as Vic stared morosely at an open suitcase. The case was empty except for a single photograph.

The Photograph.

She knew she should burn the damn thing, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

She'd slammed the lid closed and glared silently at the unwelcome presence that stood darkening her doorway.

 _"You have to stop moping around my house, or I'll be forced to tell my dad how worried I am about you."_

Vic had opened her mouth to protest, ready to offer any form of supplication necessary in order to spare her that particular indignity, when she'd caught the wicked twinkle in Cady's blue eyes.

Her lips had twitched despite her attempt to keep a straight face.

 _"And here I thought we were friends, Cady Longmire,"_ Vic had replied, attempting a light-hearted affect.

Something in her tone must've revealed the rawness of her emotions though because Cady's eyes had softened and her head had tilted in a sympathetic way that had Vic's eyes burning and feeling uncharacteristically moist.

 _"We are friends, Vic_ ," she'd offered, sincerely.

Vic had bit her upper lip and blinked rapidly a few times, nodding her acknowledgement.

Then, after a beat, Cady had wondered aloud whether Walt might qualify for a handicapped placard based solely on his level of emotional retardation, and Vic had begun to laugh despite herself.

She'd laughed so hard that she'd cried, and then she'd kept on crying, and Cady had stayed.

At a time in her life when she'd been feeling pretty friendless, Cady Longmire had been a Godsend.

So, she supposed she owed her at least this much.

"Walt?" she called. "Come on, Walt, open up," she entreated, knocking on the front door. It was new, the wood smooth and unfinished, and it remained firmly closed despite her polite request. Growing impatient, she tried again, louder this time. "WALT!" She pounded with the side of her fist, applying an open-up-or-I'm-coming-in amount of force.

The cabin remained silent, though, the whistling of the wind and the creaking of the porch's floorboards the only reply to her insistent knocking. Sighing, she turned up her collar against the cold and made her way around to the rear of the cabin, peeking in windows as she went. There was a light on in the living room, and it was easy to see that, unless he was passed out in the dark bathroom, he was not inside. Her gut twisted a little as she rounded the corner to the back of the cabin. When she'd arrived, she'd parked behind Walt's Bronco. If he wasn't inside…

In the surreal brightness that only occurs when a full moon lands on fresh snow, it was easy to make out the set of size thirteen boot prints leading away from the back door of the cabin. The prints were softened by the continuing snowfall, deeper near the house and then nearly disappearing further out where the wind was whipping along the open field between Walt's place and the woods. The prints had obviously been there for some time. Vic debated for all of ten seconds about whether to go back and radio the station for help or set out on her own.

Ferg was alone at the station, and she'd hate to call him all the way out here in this weather for nothing. Walt was a smart man, and he wouldn't have gone far alone in this weather, not on foot.

He could be laying out there right now. Cold. Alone.

She felt the ache in her chest intensify.

Decision made, she scanned the horizon, picking a specific point on the distant ridgeline to use to orient herself, and then she headed for the tree line.

She followed his boot prints, making good time for the first quarter of a mile or so before the density of the forest made finding the next print difficult. It was much slower going after that. The incline was gradual, and Vic was in good shape, but the deepening snow had her panting for breath after another half mile. Finally, there was a break in the trees that opened into a clearing, and she was able to see again. She'd lost the exact trail about thirty yards back, but she was determined not to go back to the cabin without Walt.

She'd promised Cady she'd make sure he was okay, and that's what she intended to do.

 _For Cady,_ she told herself, silently. _For him_ , her subconscious supplied, propelling her forward.

 _For you_ , her heart reminded her.

"WALT!" she called, her voice echoing off the mountains in the distance. "WALT! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

She scanned the tree line along the perimeter of the large open space in which she'd found herself. She didn't see any signs of life. Though she knew the cabin was a little less than a mile away, it felt as though she was alone on some foreign planet. She was from the city. She was not built for this type of solitude. She was more the alone-amidst-a-sea-of-people type. Besides, he had to be close by. He would not have gone up the mountain in this weather, and she was only about a quarter of a mile from the base at this point. In fact, she should be getting close to the—oh, God.

The lake.

No sooner had she thought the words than an audible pop rang out in the cold air, followed by a ripping, cracking sound that sent a bolt of fear straight down her spine. She shifted, ready to sprint for the trees, but it was too late, the ice gave way beneath her feet and she was plunged into the icy water below.

Cold. It was so bitingly cold. Every muscle in her body shortened simultaneously, contracting to the point of pain. She was completely submerged, and she wasn't positive she knew which way was up. Trying not to panic, she thrashed toward what she thought was the surface, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, her clothes saturated and heavy, weighing her down. Her lungs burned, but she fought the urge to breathe, knowing full well that one lungful of this icy lake water would mean her death.

Finally breaking free of the surface, she gasped, pulling in large lungfuls of thin but precious mountain air. Her hands searched clumsily along the jagged edges of broken ice, struggling to find purchase. Each time she attempted to hoist herself from the water though, the ice broke and plunged her momentarily back into the dark water.

 _Do not panic, Vic_ , she told herself, sternly. _Focus._

Seeing no other option, she began using her elbows to break the ice. Time after time, she brought one arm up over her head and then brought it down hard, elbow first, over the edge of the ice, breaking off pieces and moving toward the tree line and, she hoped, the shore. Her arms ached but she kept going, alternating. Left, right, left, right. Reach, break, reach, break.

Slowly, she became aware that she was making some sort of noise, some cross between crying and gasping. It was involuntary, and she'd never heard herself make such a sound before.

It scared her.

The tree line was still so far away, and her feet still hadn't touched bottom. Her movements slowed.

She was getting tired.

Just as she was beginning to think that maybe resting for a second seemed like a good idea, she heard his voice.

"VIC!"

He sounded far away, and she thought for a minute that maybe her mind was slipping away into the ether.

"VIC! HOLD ON!"

But then she realized he wasn't that far away at all. He was just behind her, or rather, to the side of her. He was about twenty feet away, crawling toward her on his belly. Each time he called her name the wind seemed to carry it away, making his voice sound deceptively distant. She realized, distractedly, that the same must have been true when she was calling to him. It didn't matter though, because she'd found him now.

Now, she could rest.

Her eyes were really heavy, and she was finding it difficult to focus on him, despite the fact that he was much closer now. Almost close enough to touch.

"Vic! Can you hear me? I said, hang on! VIC!" he sounded a little panicky, and his fear triggered a renewed surge of her own terror.

She started thrashing, using her elbows once again to break the ice and move herself in his direction.

"STOP! Vic, stop! Don't break the ice!"

She stopped, more in response to the proximity of his voice than his actual words.

"Good girl," he said gently, his hands finally reaching her and curling around her biceps. "I've got you."

She wanted to weep in relief, but she was using every ounce of her strength to stay alert and focused on the directions he was giving her. He'd slipped a length of rope around her body, just under her arms, and cinched it in a knot. Further up the length of the same rope was a looped section that circled his own chest, just below his arms. The longest part ran about forty feet away where it was attached harness-style to a dark mare, standing on what Vic presumed was the shore.

"Okay, get ready," he told her.

She watched his lips carefully, trying to take in what he was saying to her.

"When I lift you up, I want you to stay flat, okay? We have to lay flat or the ice will break again. Do you understand?"

She tried to nod, but she honestly wasn't sure if she succeeded or not.

"Okay, here we go," he said, slipping his arms under hers and holding on tight. Before she realized what he was going to do, he yelled, "YA! G'IDDUP!" and almost instantly she was pulled free from the water and could feel herself sliding along the snow-covered ice.

Fear kept her completely immobilized, but she could feel his arms around her, and for the moment that was enough. For the moment, it was everything.

When they finally stopped moving, and Walt sat up, tugging at the rope that was secured just above her breasts, she realized that her body was completely numb. She tried to sit up, but only managed to roll sideways, lamely. She attempted to help him with the knot, only to discover that her fingers were drawn up tightly to her hands as if someone had tugged her tendons tight like laces in a pair of sneakers. Her bones ached, and none of her muscles were cooperating with her commands. She was startled to realize it was actually colder here on land than it had been when she was fully submerged in the water. Some part of her brain knew that this was not new information, but the fact surprised her nonetheless.

In a matter of seconds Walt had given up on the knots and used his pocket knife to cut them both free of the rope. The dark colored mare stood nearby on the shore, eyeing them warily. It was the horse he'd rescued from the illegal rodeo case, she realized.

"Come on, Vic," he said, tugging gently at her shoulders. "You gotta get up."

"I d-don't th-think I c-can, W-walt," she chattered. She was shivering in a manner she could only describe as violently. Her basic first-aid training told her that she was hypothermic, and she desperately needed to raise her body temperature.

Seeming to read her thoughts, Walt rose up onto his knees and began running his hands up and down her arms, coaxing blood flow back into them.

Following his lead, she crossed her arms over her chest and began to move her arms up and down as best she could, creating friction.

Appearing satisfied with her ability to care for her upper body, he moved on to her lower extremities, running his large hands up and down the tops of her thighs, massaging the musculature there and forcing blood return into the tissue. He moved down to her calves, massaging them with his strong fingers, before bending her legs at the knee and helping her plant her feet firmly in the snow.

"You ready?" he asked. "Come on, we've gotta get you up." He stood, hoisting her to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but with his help she was able to remain standing. He led her over into the tree line, out of the direct path of the wind, and began stripping off her outer wear. He stood very close, so close she could feel the heat of his breath against her face.

"Walt…" she began, unsure of what he was doing. There was no cover out here. As bad as wet clothes were, no clothes would be even worse. She was lucid enough to realize that, at least.

"Just trust me, Vic," he said, softly. "I've got you."

And as mad as she'd been at him lately, as much as he'd hurt her with this callous words and his thoughtless actions, she found that she did still trust him. With her physical safety at least. So, she relaxed into his touch, as much as her rigid muscles would allow, and let him continue removing her wet clothes. In moments, she stood before him in just her tank top and jeans; her coat, flannel, and t-shirt discarded on the ground between them. Quickly, he shrugged out of his heavy winter coat and wrapped it around her, stuffing her arms into the warm, faux-sheepskin interior and dexterously buttoning it all the way up to her chin. He turned up the collar and then cupped both of her hands in his larger ones and raised them to his lips. He breathed hot, moist air onto her frozen fingers and then quickly tucked each of her hands into the fleece-lined pockets at her sides.

It felt like heaven.

She didn't argue with him about the coat. They were only a little less than a mile from the cabin, and she was much worse off than he was with regard to the cold. Walt was a man who prepared for things. She would be willing to bet he still had on at least three layers without his coat, one of which was undoubtedly comprised of thermal material.

He slipped his cowboy hat onto her head, frowning when it listed to one side, loosely. He righted it, and it came to rest low around her ears. Despite the ill fit, the immediate lack of ice cold wind on her wet scalp felt so good that she closed her eyes in relief.

She started to ask him what he'd been doing out here, but the sound came out only as a violent clattering of her teeth. The force actually had her worried about her dental health.

Walt looked concerned, too. "Come on, let's get you back to the cabin before you freeze to death," he said, leading her in the direction of the large, dark brown horse. The mare stamped her foot in the snow, but didn't move away. "What were you doing out here, anyway?" he asked her, suddenly sounding angry.

She wanted to say that she could ask him the same thing, but speaking around the uncontrollable spasms of her jaw muscles seemed too much of an effort. Instead, she remained silent. However, when they neared the mare and Walt made a move to lift her onto the large animal's back, Vic gave him a look that was full of trepidation, and managed an audible, "N-no."

"We don't have time to walk it, Vic. It's too far," he said, shaking his head. "She's safe, I promise," he swore, his eyes conveying his sincerity, their fear-filled depths pleading with her to cooperate.

The wind picked that particular moment to blow harder, and she sucked in a breath, nearly crying out in pain as the cold air knifed across her still-wet body. Nodding her assent, Vic reached up and fisted her trembling hand in the horse's mane as best she could, allowing Walt to mostly-lift her onto the animal's back.

Using the makeshift rope harness for leverage, Walt swung himself up onto the mare's back, scooting forward until his front was pressed tightly against Vic's back.

The moment might have been awkward if she wasn't so grateful for the blessed warmth that his body provided. A particularly violent tremor ran through her in response to the cold wind, which seemed to be blowing even harder at this new elevation. She felt Walt bend forward, curling himself around her body and tucking her against him.

"G'iddup," she heard him call to the mare. She felt his thighs flex as his boots tapped the animal's flanks, gently but firmly, and they were off.

"Walt!" she yelped, as they lurched forward and she struggled to hang on. Her fingers were still painfully knotted by the cold, and her legs hung limply on either side of the mare, providing absolutely no sense of stability or balance.

"You're okay," he said, softly, his voice drifting down from somewhere above her right ear. She could feel the rumble of his deep voice against her back, and she pressed herself into the vibration and the warmth that emanated from him. She felt his right arm wrap around her waist, his large hand coming to rest on her left hip like a human safety restraint. "I've got you."

She closed her eyes and concentrated on absorbing as much of his warmth as she could.

He must have known these woods like the back of his hand because within minutes they were on some sort of rough trail, its presence made obvious by the clear break in the undergrowth. Once the mare was on sure footing Walt urged her into a trot and then a full gallop once they broke free of the lower tree line. Icy wind bit at Vic's skin as they flew across the open field, but she had little energy left to react to the stinging assault. Their ride was mostly silent, interspersed with his occasional entreaty for her to stay awake. She struggled to oblige, but it was more difficult than she would have thought, even for such a short length of time. What had taken her nearly an hour to traverse took the large mare less than ten minutes. Still, by the time they reached the cabin, Vic's head lolled drunkenly against Walt's shoulder and she was having difficulty keeping her eyes open.

When they reached the back of the cabin Walt dismounted before the horse even came to a complete stop. He pulled her down from atop the animal's back, supporting most of her weight as her feet stumbled clumsily and her heavy limbs hung uselessly at her sides. He looped the lead rope around a small, bare tree near the back door and then led her quickly into the cabin.

The interior was disappointingly cool. There was an obvious lack of wind, which made a dramatic difference, but still, she had been hoping for a nice seventy-degree welcome. She remembered, belatedly, that Walt's cabin did not have central heat. She dragged her tired eyes to the fireplace and stifled a groan when she noted the low-burning coals resting in the grate.

Seeming to understand her disappointment, Walt said, "I'll have it going in no time, I promise."

He led her over to the couch and sat her down, tugging the afghan from its place atop the cushions and wrapping it around her shoulders. Turning, he made quick work of adding two large logs to the fire along with a handful of old newspaper as tinder. He stoked the embers until the paper caught and the fire roared back to life. When he stepped aside she could feel the heat on her face, even from several feet away. "I'll be right back," he said, moving toward his bedroom.

Moments later he returned with an armful of linen. He tossed it beside her on the couch and then reached forward, removing his hat from her head. There was slight resistance as it pulled away and she realized, distractedly, that her wet hair had begun to freeze where it had been exposed to the wind. She shivered, involuntarily, and closed her eyes as he slipped a soft towel over her head. His fingers worked gently, massaging her scalp, coaxing the moisture from the lengths of her hair. She hummed her pleasure, but the sound was drowned out by the noisy chattering of her teeth.

Seeming satisfied that her hair was acceptably dry, he motioned toward the stack of dry clothes he'd set beside her. "Here are some dry things. You'll warm up faster once you're out of those wet clothes."

She reached out numbly for the soft-looking thermal, but her fingers wouldn't cooperate enough to grasp the material. She tried twice and on the second try the shirt slipped from her fingers and onto the floor between them. She blew out a frustrated breath and bent forward to retrieve it, but Walt's hand on her shoulder stilled her movements. Wordlessly, he picked up the shirt from the floor, placed it on the couch, and knelt down in front of her. Reaching out, slowly, he peeled the afghan from her shoulders, allowing it to fall around her waist. He paused then, his fingers brushing just below her chin as they prepared to remove the large winter coat he'd wrapped her in. He watched her eyes, waiting for permission. Once granted, he made quick work of the shiny, silver buttons. His eyes remained respectfully on his hands, as much as possible. When he finished unbuttoning, he moved to sit beside her on the couch, pressing his palm against her back until she shifted, turning away from him.

Her back to him, Vic bit her lip in response to his attempt to respect her privacy.

Quickly, but gently, he peeled the heavy winter coat away from her body, slipping it down her arms, and allowing it to fall into a heap on the floor. She felt a slight tug as he curled his fingers into the hem of her damp tank top. There was a momentary pause then, until a loud pop from the fire seemed to jar him from whatever hesitation he'd been experiencing. The backs of his fingers skimmed along her sides as he pulled the shirt up and over her head.

Her arms felt abnormally heavy as she lifted them, but she managed to help at least that much. Her heart stuttered just a tiny bit in her chest as she felt the gentle _pop_ of her bra slackening. She held her breath as his fingers slipped the straps forward over her bare shoulders. The scrap of lace and cotton landed in her lap, and she stared down at it, silently, wondering how today had managed to stray so profoundly off course.

She felt extremely exposed, despite the fact that her back was to him. Within moments though, Walt had reached around her, tugged her arms free of her bra, and placed them inside the sleeves of the white thermal top. It was obviously one of his; it was quite large and the material was soft due to multiple washings. He helped her raise her arms, and then tugged the collar over her head, smoothing the hem down until her bare skin was swallowed up in warm, dry cotton. He moved then, kneeling once again at her feet. Lifting one foot, he tugged firmly at her boot. It made a sucking sound as he pulled her foot from inside it. He repeated the process with the other boot and then peeled her soaking wet socks from her feet one at a time. Reaching forward, he grabbed the afghan from its resting place and draped it loosely around her hips.

He cleared his throat as he tugged the blanket down over her lap and reached beneath the folds in order to grasp the button on her jeans. "I'm just gonna," he nodded in the direction of her saturated blue jeans.

Unable to do much more to assist him than lean back, she nodded her assent and shifted her weight back onto her elbows.

As quickly and efficiently as possible he popped the button, loosened the zipper, and curled his fingers into the waistband of her jeans. A handful of wet denim and cotton at each hip, he tugged firmly until the cold, heavy material slipped over thighs, down her calves, and finally over her bare feet.

The sight of her panties clinging tenaciously to the inside of her discarded jeans had heat creeping into her cheeks, which, she supposed, given the circumstance, was a good thing. She wasn't sure if he'd intended to remove them along with her jeans or not, but if he noticed at all, he gave no outward indication. It was as if he'd slipped into some sort of clinical mode that allowed him to divorce himself from the situation, completely.

She followed his example and pretended to be at the gynecologist's. She stared silently up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact as he slipped her legs into a pair of soft thermal underwear and slid them up over her hips.

Clinical detachment. Apparently, that was the key.

She could be detached.

When his warm palms began to massage her cold feet, however, she felt a sudden and surprising surge of emotion well up inside her. As he carefully tugged a pair of large, droopy tube socks onto her feet, she had to blink her eyes against the stinging prick of unwanted tears.

It was a completely irrational response.

She blamed the adrenaline.

Seeming satisfied with his handiwork, and completely oblivious to her newly emotional state, he tugged the afghan away from her body and spread it out on the wood floor, near the fire. Reaching back, he pulled two more blankets from the pile on the couch and spread those out as well. Then, tucking his hands under her arms, he half-lifted her from the couch and supported her weight as he urged her onto the blankets. Once she was seated, he grabbed the last few blankets from the couch and draped them in layers over her shoulders.

For the first time since he'd dragged her from the icy lake, he stilled his movements.

If he noticed a change in her he did not address it. Staring hard at her for several long seconds, he seemed to weigh his options, before finally speaking.

"I need to go put the horse back in the barn," he said. "Will you be okay? I'll be right back," he promised, earnestly.

Despite her emotions, the heat from the fire was already working its magic, and though she continued to tremble and her teeth continued their seemingly endless chatter, she could feel her adrenaline waning. She nodded at him with jerky imprecision, and said, "C-call C-cady, W-walt."

He hesitated, but she nodded toward the phone. "D-do it. She's w-worried," she insisted, gaining slightly better control over her words this time.

"When I get back," he agreed, reaching for his discarded hat and stuffing it hastily onto his thick, wind-blown hair. In three long strides, he was out the door.

Once he'd left the cabin, Vic took a deep, trembling breath and scooted herself even closer to the fire. Much closer and she wouldn't be safe from singed hair, but she was cold in such a bone-deep way that a few singed hairs seemed like a miniscule price to pay for some warmth. Rolling awkwardly onto her side, she lay facing the fire. She drew her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, tucking her hands beneath her chin, determined to conserve every bit of body heat that she could.

Within minutes Walt was back, removing his hat and toeing off his boots by the back door.

"Hey, Punk," she heard his deep voice rumble, and she knew he must've stopped by the phone to call Cady, though her heavy eyelids had slipped closed again, so it was entirely possible that she was asleep and was merely dreaming that he'd returned.

"I'm sorry," she heard him murmur. "Lady wandered out of the corral and I had to go round her up before the weather got too bad. Took awhile to convince her to come back with me." She kept her eyes closed, listening as his deep voice drew closer. She heard a rustling of fabric and then, "Yeah, Vic is here. We're okay, but she's gonna stay the night." He paused, and then, "There was a mishap up at the lake, but we're both okay. Listen, Punk, I gotta go, okay? Me too. Okay. Bye."

The floorboards creaked directly behind her, and before she could turn to see what he was doing, Walt had untucked the blankets from around her back and slipped beneath them, pressing himself tightly against her. He pulled her to him, his strong arms tugging her back until the entirety of her body fit perfectly within the curve of his. His chin rested on the crown of her head, and her legs relaxed slightly, allowing his knees to tuck firmly into the space behind hers. Due to his proximity, she could tell he'd shed most of his layers as well. He now had on what felt like thermal underwear like the ones he'd dressed her in. The thin, cotton material allowed his body heat to flow nearly directly into her skin, and an appreciative noise rose unbidden from the back of her throat. He rocked her slightly in response, the movement soothing, and presumably meant to create friction and warmth, which it did; however, it also induced a profound sense of well-being. He slipped his arm beneath her so that her head was cradled against the solid warmth of his bicep, and he rested his own head on a cushion he'd pulled down from the couch. His other hand busied itself rubbing firmly up and down the length of her hip and thigh.

She wondered about the fact that this all seemed okay somehow. She chalked it up to circumstance.

His touch was a relief.

It wasn't sexual. It was necessary. It was a gesture meant to comfort, and it did.

Sighing, she relaxed into his touch, allowing his much larger body to coax hers back into a state of thermoneutrality. As she let his heat curl its way into her muscles and begin to thaw the ice in her bones, she allowed her mind to wander.

So, he'd been chasing Lady up the mountain, huh? The horse's name was Lady. Figures.

She chuckled silently to herself.

He must have interpreted the movement as a tremor because he held her tighter and rubbed his hand a bit more firmly against her thigh.

She worried her upper lip with her teeth.

"Y-you were chasing Lady," she tried to explain, though in light of her trembling jaw it came out sounding more like _ladies_ , which made her want to both laugh and cry.

After a moment he replied, "She took off just as it started to snow." His hand stilled, coming to rest on her hip, and his next words came out slow, weighted. "I know she was wild once, that she can take care of herself…" His fingers flexed around the sharpness of her hipbone. "But I just couldn't stand the thought of her being out there on her own."

She pondered his words. Her mind was a little fuzzy, but she was pretty sure they were talking about more than just the rescued mare.

The ache in her chest flared back to life.

She thought of how she'd trusted him implicitly when he'd pulled her from the lake earlier, despite everything that had happened between them these past few months.

She remembered how she'd felt two years ago, driving back to Chance Gilbert's place alone, not knowing what she'd find when she got there.

And she remembered what it felt like to fall apart in his arms the next morning.

"She wouldn't have stayed gone forever, Walt," she whispered. "She would've come back."

There was no hesitation when he reached for her. There was just the feel of his fingers threading between her own.

He'd reached for her hand once before. They'd been sitting on the bench outside his office, and he'd just reached for it, easy as you please, like he had every right to do so. He'd cradled it, examined it, and then he'd let her take it back.

And the day he'd been shot. That day he'd reached for her, too. He'd taken her hand and drawn her whole body into his arms. He'd held her and comforted her, and he'd drawn comfort from her. He hadn't hesitated that day either.

Just like he hadn't hesitated today.

The only times they seemed to move forward were in those rare moments of bravery.

"What were you doing out there today?" he asked, his soft words falling directly into her ear.

She sighed, but she did not hesitate.

"I was chasing you."


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n: Thank you all so much for each review, follow, and favorite! Each one is greatly appreciated! Hope you all stick with me for the ride!**

* * *

She must've fallen asleep because it was obvious some time had passed. The logs had burned down to glowing red coals, though their residual heat had left the room comfortably warm for the moment. Her body had returned to a normal temperature, and she was grateful that her muscles seemed to be in working order again. She flexed her fingers and Walt grunted behind her in his sleep. Too late, she realized his fingers were still entwined with her own. She must have been so physically and emotionally wrung out after the evening's events that she'd passed out in front of the fire. She wondered if it'd been the same for him or if he'd stayed awake, holding onto her as she slept, until eventually drifting off himself.

A sharp pang of longing lanced at her heart and had her moving out of the warm comfort of his embrace.

Trying not to wake him, she shifted onto her back and then rolled onto her opposite side, so she lay facing him. His hair was mussed and his jaw and forehead were relaxed in sleep. He looked younger, less burdened, and she found herself unable to summon the anger she'd been nursing for the past few months. It had been replaced by a feeling of tenderness she supposed must have been brought on by the events of the day. She searched his face for signs of the callous stranger who'd pushed her away so coldly months before, but she saw no trace of him. Instead, she saw Walt. She saw her friend; flawed, but undeniably good. This man she knew, his sleeping countenance the same one she'd witnessed in his office, his truck, even the holding cell on more than one occasion. This was the Walt she missed when her guard was down and she let herself forget about all the reasons the distance between them had grown so vast and impassible. This was the Walt who, despite all her efforts, still had the power to hurt her.

He shifted in his sleep and grimaced slightly.

She felt bad. She knew her own back would be sore in the morning after a night on the hard floor. She imagined that it'd be worse for him, though she doubted he'd ever complain. Deciding to wake him after all and persuade him to go get in his bed, she pressed her hand to his cheek and whispered, "Walt."

He was a light sleeper, and the single word was all it took to have his eyes blinking open and struggling to focus. She realized she was backlit by the fire, and her face was probably difficult to see in the otherwise dark room. His lashes fluttered in the orange, half-light, and she wondered if he was struggling to remember why he was sleeping on the floor. She continued to watch him, silently, as recognition and understanding slowly began to fill his eyes.

"Hey," she whispered.

"Hey," he replied, shifting his legs slightly, causing their knees to bump together. "Are you okay?" he asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

"I'm fine," she shrugged, nonchalantly, as if she conquered small things like hypothermia every day. "Good as new, thanks to you," she added, smiling softly. She could feel his body heat through the layers of thermal material and she resisted the urge to move closer.

He shook his head. Reaching down, tentatively, he brushed a lock of pale, blonde hair away from her brow, tucking it gently behind her ear, before resting his hand on her shoulder. "You scared me today," he whispered, his eyes solemn.

She didn't know which surprised her more, his touch or his honesty. She thought he must be feeling as out of sorts as she was.

"You scared me first," she shot back, shrugging, as if to say _serves you right_.

"I'm serious, Vic," he pressed, and she could tell that he was. He'd been scared out there. As scared as she had been, maybe.

And she _had_ been scared. Especially at the end of her search, just before the ice broke, when she'd made it nearly all the way to the base of the mountain and had still seen no sign of him.

The ache in her chest throbbed, reminding her what it'd felt like to wonder if the last time she'd seen him would be the literal _last_ time she'd see him. It had been an upsetting and wholly terrifying thought, and she'd fought against it as she'd continued her search, focusing instead on the task of finding him, refusing to entertain the possibility that she wouldn't. Or worse, that she would find him, and it would be too late.

His eyes were focused on hers now, having adjusted to the low light. Slowly, he slid his hand over hers, holding her palm in place against his stubbled cheek.

She felt her heart stutter in response.

The way he was looking at her…

Her scalp prickled, and her cheeks grew warm under the intense scrutiny, but she didn't look away.

She felt a surge of anxiety tighten her chest, and she took deep breaths, trying to persuade herself to relax, to pull away, to do a number of completely contradictory things at the same time. In the end, though, she remained as she was, unmoving, her body willfully ignoring the warning her brain was frantically trying to send her. She knew she should move away, put some distance between them, so that she could gain a little perspective. She was angry with Walt. That fact hadn't changed. She knew it, but in this moment, she didn't _feel_ it. He'd been a complete asshole to her, and yet the threat of him being gone, completely and irrevocably gone from her life, had caused her to feel a sense of loss so profound that it'd completely eclipsed her anger. Even now, hours later, she was overcome with such a sense of gratitude to have him here with her, like this.

The emotion was intensely overwhelming, almost euphoric, and it left little room for anything else.

She'd nearly died tonight. If he hadn't found her at the exact moment that he had, she was sure she wouldn't have even made it out of the lake, let alone back to the cabin.

And Walt was okay, safe and unharmed. He was here, solid and warm and whole and looking at her with an unguarded openness she'd never seen him exhibit in all the years she'd known him.

In the safety of the firelight, she felt the pull.

She was too tired, and he was too close, and they were too naked-not physically, though they were in an unprecedented state of mutual undress, but emotionally.

She'd stood emotionally bare before him once before, in that awful alleyway. She'd stood there, not as Vic-The-Trusty-Deputy, with her badge and her swagger as shields, but as a woman, as Victoria, with no armor and no pretense.

She shied away from the memory now, not wanting to dwell on how horribly wrong it had all gone. The point was, he'd never reciprocated. He'd never once looked into her eyes and allowed himself to just _feel_ , to see and be seen, no rules, no labels. No Sheriff Walt Longmire and Deputy Vic Moretti. Just Walt, the man, and Victoria, the woman…no defenses. He'd never done it.

Until now.

She held his gaze, searching. She recognized desire and affection. She wasn't brave enough or sure enough of him to call it love, but for better or worse, her heart was in this thing, and she couldn't back away without knowing.

She leaned forward, slowly, still expecting him to stop her at any second or pull away just before she reached him. When he did neither, she pressed her lips against his. Her kiss was firm, not tentative; not chaste, but not heated either. His lips were warm and surprisingly soft, and she felt them slide smoothly beneath her own as he turned slightly to the side.

He was trying to shift closer, but she misinterpreted the movement.

"Sorry," she whispered, breaking away and beginning to pull back. "I'm-," she started, until she felt his fingers slip into her hair and pull her firmly back to him.

"Vic," he whispered against her mouth, before pulling back just enough to look into her eyes one more time. Apparently finding whatever it was he was searching for, he moved toward her, slowly.

She held completely still, not even daring to breathe as he slowly closed the distance between them once again.

His lips sealed over hers, and still she didn't move, unsure at first if he would suddenly realize what he'd done and change his mind. When his tongue touched the seam of her lips, though, she couldn't resist responding. She opened her mouth, allowing him inside, drinking in the taste of him. She made a noise that was completely unlike her, not a whimper, but something embarrassingly close to one, and the world began to tilt and ignite as he surged forward, rolling her onto her back and moving them closer to the low-burning fire. She moved her other hand up to his face and felt the scrape of his stubble against her palms as he tilted his head to get a better angle.

She parted her legs and allowed him to settle into the cradle of her thighs. There was nothing hesitant about the weight of him there. This was happening. She felt him slip his hand under her top, and his palm was warm and perfectly work-roughened against her skin. She tilted her head back as he slid his hand along her ribs, down over her hip and then behind her, under her, cupping her backside and bringing her more firmly against him. In response, she slipped both of her hands beneath his shirt and glided them down the length of his body, finally settling on the perfect roundness of his surprisingly firm ass. When she tugged him against her and flexed her hips, he bucked against her softness, leaving no doubt as to the extent of his arousal.

Within minutes they were tugging frantically at each other's clothes, unwilling to permit even a single barrier to remain between them. Both of their tops were already lost to the dark recesses of the living room, when he curled his fingers into the waistband of the thermal pants he'd dressed her in mere hours before. She raised up on her elbows to watch him tug the loose pants down over her hips but hissed in pain when her arms made contact with the floor. He looked at her, concerned, but she smiled encouragingly and lay back down waiting for him to divest her of the pants, which he did. When he slid back up her body, though, he paused to kiss both of her elbows, lingering on the bruised flesh as if his kiss alone could heal her. In that moment, she almost believed that it could.

When his lips finally made it back up to hers after a meandering side trip along her torso, over her breasts, and up the long column of her throat, she kissed him with all the desperation she'd been pushing down for the past few months, hell, probably the past few years, if she were being honest with herself.

He responded by cradling the back of her head in his palm, protecting it from the hardness of the floor, and pressing into her with an equally fierce kiss. It stole her breath, and by the time she'd sufficiently recovered, he'd managed to shove his own thermals down his legs and kick them off, leaving them both completely naked.

After that, it was a blur of hot, wet kisses and firm, tantalizing touches and intense, mind-blowing friction.

It was fast and desperate, and unexpected. Ill-advised and wonderful.

There were no words exchanged. There was just the creak of the floor boards, the rustle of blankets, the pop of logs disappearing into embers in the fireplace, their quick, labored breaths, and the intimate sounds of two bodies straining to become one.

* * *

In the cold light of morning, things felt shockingly different. More real, more ill-advised. More embarrassingly juvenile. She hadn't regretted sex in many years. Not really. Not even Eamonn. Sex with him had been stupid, but she'd been lonely, and for the most part she'd known where they stood. But _this_? What kind of idiot spends the better part of three months trying desperately to seem like they don't give a shit about someone only to give it up the first time that person shows the slightest hint of interest?

 _I don't care about you at all, Walt, and I know you don't give a shit about me, but please fuck me anyway._

 _Oh, and can you still respect me tomorrow, please?_

What had she been thinking?

It was a completely rhetorical question, as she obviously hadn't been thinking at all. She'd been scared and emotional and probably still in a little bit of shock, given the day she'd had, but it was no excuse. She had made a mistake. They both had. Nothing had changed between them. There hadn't been any talking. No revelations, no resolutions. Nothing. Things were still just as fucked up as before.

Moreso now.

She groped blindly in the early morning half-light for the thermal top he'd leant her, the one he'd so recently and skillfully removed from body. She tugged it over her head, letting it fall loosely down over her hips. She had no idea where he'd put her coat and other outer-wear, if he'd even grabbed it from the shore of the frozen lake, but she couldn't think about that right now. She had two very simple objectives at this moment. Get dressed as silently as possible, and get the hell out of here without waking him up.

Soundlessly, she shimmied into the thermal pants she'd had on the night before and, with some firm tugging, managed to slip her jeans on over them. She tugged the floppy tube socks back onto her feet and shoved both feet into her damp boots. She shivered, but knew that her truck would warm up quickly. A little discomfort now meant not having to face him quite yet. She wasn't emotionally prepared for that. She needed to get herself put back together. She needed to feel like _Vic_ again, like his deputy. She felt strong when she was Deputy Vic Moretti. Right now, though, with her hair down, wearing his clothes, with the smell of him still on her skin, she felt decidedly like Victoria.

And Victoria was susceptible to him. She was vulnerable, and Deputy Vic Moretti was not.

She wondered, distractedly, as she snagged a flannel shirt from a coat rack by the door, when it was that she'd started to become more comfortable as Vic than as Victoria. She had a sinking feeling it was long before she'd met Walt Longmire. She shoved her arms into the over-sized flannel and tried not to worry about the fact that she was referring to herself as two separate people.

When she opened the door and slipped out into the cold morning, she resisted the urge to look back at him one last time.

She let the truck roll silently across the fresh powder, not accelerating until she hit the salted expanse of the paved road. There, she gunned the engine and headed for home. She would give anything to be going home to her own place today. She loved Cady, but she did not want to face anyone right now. Feeling like a jerk, she prayed that Cady would still be under the weather and confined to her bed.

When she got home, she was relieved to find that the younger Longmire was indeed still holed up in her bedroom, sleeping soundly. She retreated to her room, and stripped off the clothes that still smelled like them. She climbed, immediately, into the shower and scrubbed until she started to feel like Vic again.

By the time she tightened the laces on her work boots, there wasn't a trace of Victoria left to be found. She was safely squared away behind the severe ponytail and the reflective aviators.

Vic headed to work, just like she normally would. She was scheduled for a shift this morning, and she needed to relieve Ferg. She was going to be there early, but that wasn't really uncommon for her. She'd stop at the Bee and get a fresh coffee, just like she did every time she had an extra few minutes to spare in the morning. She might skip the short stack today, as her stomach felt like she'd eaten a bucket of wet concrete, but otherwise, she planned to follow her routine. She would go about her day as if nothing had happened, because as far as anyone else, except Walt, was concerned, nothing had.

By eight AM, she'd relieved Ferg, fielded two minimally important phone calls, and received one BOLO fax from Laramie. Now, sitting behind her desk, four pages into a six-page report, she realized she'd almost pulled it off. Everything seemed normal, on the surface.

It had all happened in the protected cocoon of darkness, and she could almost pretend it had never happened at all, that she'd dreamed the whole thing.

She heard the sound of Walt's boots on the stairs.

Almost.

She heard them reach the landing and pause, before continuing on to the private door that led into his office. When his door closed, she let out a breath.

Almost, but not quite.


	3. Chapter 3

**a/n: Okay, my loves, for those of you who sent me messages, hoping for more of this story, I hope you like what I have in store. After the new season, I needed a little recovery time, but now I'm back, and I will finish the story I set out to tell if you're still there to read it. This is obviously totally AU, but I hope it's enjoyable, nonetheless. Let me know if you're still out there...**

Two hours passed wherein she sat at her desk jumping every time his chair scraped along the floor and his boots thumped and scraped their way around his office. Twice, they paused just inside his door, and she was sure he was going to come out and demand that they talk about what had happened between them. It was Saturday, which meant Ruby wasn't in the office, so even though it was a public place and anyone could come in at any moment, they were, for all intents and purposes, alone. Both times, she held her breath, waiting for the door to fly open and him to demand to know just what the hell she'd been thinking sneaking out like she had. Both times, though, she listened, on edge, as his booted feet slowly shuffled away from the door, back toward his desk, or his bookshelf, or the window. She could only guess, as his door remained firmly closed.

By ten thirty, she'd decided she was an idiot for running, because that's exactly what she'd done. She absolutely felt justified for her reaction, but she knew that things would, undoubtedly, be worse now than they would have if she'd just stayed put and faced him early this morning. Running away was so unlike her.

She tried to ignore the tiny part of her heart that whispered, insistently, about how hurt and confused he must be right about now.

 _Fuck him_ , her brain contended. _He can't feel any worse than I've felt for months._

She knew that wasn't quite true. They'd crossed a line last night that they'd never crossed before, and even though she'd love to tell him it'd just been sex and to get over it, she knew she wasn't a good enough liar to pull it off. She tried to imagine what she'd be feeling if the situation were reversed and Walt had spent the night in her home and then snuck out first thing in the morning without leaving so much as a note.

Her stomach twisted, and she felt ashamed of herself for running like a coward.

The fact that he'd driven her to act so out of character pissed her off even more. Hiding out, burying her head in the hand, just wasn't like her. She'd always met things head on, even her burgeoning feelings for Walt, and she didn't intend to start changing now.

This thing with him was difficult though, overwhelming in a way that was foreign to her.

She'd felt so close to him in the past. She'd felt understood and appreciated by him in a way she'd never felt with anyone else, particularly a man. She thought back to her panic this morning and realized that part of it was related to that previous sense of connection with him. His ability to look at her as his deputy, with respect and admiration, and still see _her_ , still see Victoria, at the same time, had meant so much more to her than she'd realized at the time. She hadn't even grasped what it was that initially drew her to him, making her want to spend time with him, learn from him, until it was too late…until the connection was lost, and he stopped seeing her at all.

In the past, she'd always had to choose. She could be Vic or she could be Victoria, but she could not be both. Gorski had seen her as a cop, as Vic, and then once he'd gotten to know _her_ , or at least the parts of her she'd allowed him to know, he'd lost all respect for her, forgetting about the competent cop that she'd been before she started sleeping with him. After that, all he'd seen was a piece of ass.

That had stung.

She'd never been in love with Ed, but she'd been young and naïve enough to believe that she could have been, given time.

Sean was the opposite. They'd met outside of work, and with Sean, she'd always been Victoria, soft and playful, sexy and adventurous. Of course, that led to its own set of problems. Sean never understood the law enforcement side of her, her commitment to it, her familial pride in coming from a long line of cops. To Sean, that part of Vic was intimidating, overly dedicated to her job, and unreasonable when it came to discussing a career change. So, he ignored that part of her, and as a result, he ignored a large part of who she was, which made for a very lonely marriage. So, he traveled for work and she picked up extra shifts, and when they weren't fighting or having make-up sex, they pretended things were fine.

And then they moved to Wyoming.

Things changed after that, after she met Walt, though not for the reasons people might think.

Walt had never asked her to be anyone other than who she was. So, she was brash and irreverent, comparatively young, and she used words like _shit_ and _asshat_ more frequently than was probably absolutely necessary, so what? She was still intelligent and kind-hearted and loyal as fuck. So, she was vulnerable at times? Who wasn't? So, he'd seen her cry once, and he'd held her through it? He'd also seen her take a punch that nearly broke her nose and would have dropped a man twice her size. She was tough, and she was damn good at her job, and Walt saw _all_ of that when he looked at her.

He'd never cherry picked the parts of her that suited him and left the rest to wither on the vine. From the very beginning, he'd accepted her in her totality-Vic, Victoria, even Vic The Terror-the complete package.

He'd never once tried to change her.

And she wouldn't ever try to change him.

Despite his flaws, truth be told, she wouldn't have him any other way.

He was stoic and abrupt. He was of a certain age, and he could be reclusive and ill-tempered. But he was also compassionate and well-read, honest and strong. He had a dry sense of humor and enough patience to try a saint when it came to an animal or a vulnerable soul.

He drove her fucking bonkers with his refusal to get his own cell phone, but there was a secret part of her that lit up at the slight curl of his lips each time she held her phone out to him, saying, "It's for you."

She didn't desert her marriage because she fell in love with Walt. It wasn't that gossip-worthy or that simple. But, once upon a time, before they managed to mess everything up, Walt had shown her what being seen as herself and being appreciated _for_ herself felt like, and it had made a lasting impression.

Regardless of what happened from this point on, she would never settle for less than that again.

* * *

 ** _Fifteen weeks later..._**

Vic drew in a deep breath and used the hem of her sweatshirt to wipe the perspiration from her brow as she kicked the heavy, oak door closed behind her. Toeing off her sneakers, she glanced at her flushed cheeks and shiny eyes in the entryway mirror. She looked good, healthy.

She always felt better after a run.

Turning, she pounded up the carpeted stairs, dragging the lightweight sweatshirt over her head as she went. In the bathroom she quickly stripped off her running clothes and stepped into the shower, groaning as the hot water needled into her cold skin. It was thirty-three degrees outside, barely above freezing, and yet she was determined to maintain a regular exercise regime. The doctors said it was good for her, and she definitely felt better when she stuck to her routine.

She was still feeling a little tired, but that was to be expected, she supposed.

She ran her fingers through her hair, letting the water saturate the strands. Once it was soaked through, she added a generous amount of shampoo and worked the blonde lengths into a good lather. Stepping under the warm spray she closed her eyes and hummed to herself as the suds slid from her scalp and made their way down her body and into the drain at her feet. She made a final couple of passes through her hair, her fingers chasing away the last of the shampoo and pausing, momentarily, to trace the raised scar that sat just above her right temple. She traced its length until it disappeared behind her ear. It was strange how such a small, unnoticeable thing could have upended her life so dramatically.

Shrugging off the wayward thought, she turned, letting the hot water sluice over her body a final time before bending and turning off the spray.

She looked out the window. It was only four-thirty, but the sun was already beginning to set. She still needed to unpack the box that her mom had sent over last weekend.

Quickly, she towel-dried her hair and made her way, naked, into her bedroom. She grabbed a pair of black leggings and her favorite long-sleeved Flyers t-shirt. It was fitted and threadbare from too many washes, but so soft and comfy she refused to get rid of it. She slipped into the clothes, adding a pair of fuzzy, orange socks as an afterthought, and made her way back downstairs. Her stomach grumbled as she reached the ground floor, and she pressed a comforting hand to her belly.

"Food," she mused. "What do we have in the way of food?"

 _Not much_ , she realized, as she peered into the nearly-empty refrigerator. She really needed to get better at this. She sighed as she reached for the carton of milk. It was whole milk, at least.

She managed to eat a bowl of cereal and a banana before heading back into the living room to unpack the large box of Christmas decorations that her mom had sent over with her brother, Michael, the weekend before. The bare spruce in the corner wasn't going to decorate itself.

Routine was important, they said. Going through the motions of life until things were back to normal. _As if things could ever be "normal" again_ , she thought, bitterly.

She sighed, struggling to have a better attitude.

They were all being really great, her family. She couldn't ask for more support.

In fact, since she'd gotten out of the hospital they'd doted on her in a way they never had before in her entire life. At least, not that she remembered, anyway.

At first someone had stayed with her twenty-four hours a day. Eventually, though, they had realized that she was still her, that she wasn't going to break. A few weeks ago, she'd even managed to convince them she was ready to live on her own again, but they still came running at the drop of a hat, refused to let her lift _anything_ , and hardly ever let her leave the house without one of them going with her.

At times it was maddening, but then she remembered waking up alone in the hospital…how terrifying it had been that first day.

Then she realized all over again how grateful she was for her loud, crazy, Italian family. Even on their worst day, they were hers, and she was theirs. Now, more than ever, that meant so much to her.

She was just taking the first of the wrapped decorations out of the over-stuffed box when her doorbell rang. Surprised, she set the tissue paper-wrapped object back in the box and made her way over to the door. She wasn't expecting anyone, and her family members, despite their over-involvement in her life, were generally pretty good about calling to let her know they were on their way over.

She pulled the door open a few inches, trying not to let in the cold.

A tall cowboy stood on her doorstep, looking at her expectantly. She peered up at his handsome face, questioningly. "Hello?" she managed, almost shyly.

These days, she didn't really like dealing with the unfamiliar.

* * *

A warm breeze filtered out of the open door of her apartment, carrying with it the sweet, vanilla scent of her damp hair. He stared into her familiar green-brown eyes, but their questioning depths had him feeling, immediately, unsettled.

"Vic?" he asked, confused by her generic and somewhat underwhelming greeting.

"I'm Victoria," she nodded. "Can I help you?"

"Can you-?" Walt whipped his hat off of his head and tried not to crush it between his big paws out of sheer frustration. Swearing lowly, he shoved his fingers through his thick hair and shifted his booted feet, struggling to reign in his temper. What kind of game was she playing?

"Do I…know you?" she asked, hesitantly.

His brows furrowed at the uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice, and his eyes flew up to meet hers, speculatively. Was she _kidding_? Because if she was, it wasn't funny. But as he took in the embarrassed confusion in her mossy green eyes, he suddenly knew she wasn't being facetious.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

Something had happened to her.

Something had happened, and that's why she'd never come back, never even phoned to say she wasn't _coming_ back. His knees weakened a little beneath him, and he stood up straighter and braced his hand against the doorframe to compensate for the sudden lack of balance he was experiencing. She was still talking, but he couldn't understand what she was saying. He watched her lips move, but couldn't make out any of the words. Was she okay, he wondered. Aside from the obvious.

His heart lurched in his chest. What about the…?

He felt himself go pale.

Alarmed, Vic opened the door a bit wider, and stepped out onto the porch, reaching for his arm. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

His eyes dropped, landing unerringly on the gentle swell of her abdomen. The breath shuddered out of him, and he dragged his eyes slowly up to meet hers once again. "I'm okay," he nodded, soberly, tilting his head toward the barely visible bump beneath her t-shirt. "But I think you took something of mine with you when you left Wyoming."

She sucked in a surprised breath, and he watched, mesmerized, as her hand dropped from his arm and slid, unconsciously, to her belly.

Any passerby on the street would look at her and see a beautiful woman with an average figure, nothing more, but to Walt the changes in her body were quite obvious. Her waist, while still slim, was noticeably thicker than before, and her belly protruded just the tiniest bit. The differences were subtle and made more obvious, he was certain, by the clingy material of her thin t-shirt, but they were, nonetheless, undeniable.

Vic was pregnant.

She was pregnant with his child…and she didn't know who in the hell he was.


	4. Chapter 4

_**a/n: Thank you all so much for your continued support of this story! As long as you're with me, I'll keep striving to get it out in a timely manner!**_

Now _she_ was the one who looked pale.

 _Ah, hell_ , he thought.

"Maybe we should go inside and sit down?" he suggested, carefully.

When she hesitated, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his badge, offering her the bit of worn leather and shiny metal that represented so much of who he was.

She ran her finger over the shiny surface of the star but didn't take it from him.

"Okay," she whispered, backing toward the open door and motioning for him to follow her inside.

She ushered him into the small, cozy living room and asked if he'd like something to drink. He declined, and then several awkward beats passed while they stood in the small space trying to figure out what to say to each other.

"Here," she said, starting to move a large box marked _Christmas Decorations_ off of the couch, presumably, so that he could sit in the empty space.

He stepped forward, quickly, grabbing the box before she could reach it. "Let me," he said. "You shouldn't be lifting anything."

"It's not that heavy," she muttered, flushing slightly at the reference to her before-now-undiscussed pregnancy.

"Where do you want it?" he asked, ignoring her protest.

"Um, just on the floor near the tree is fine. Thank you," she acquiesced.

She waited for him to move back to the couch and remove his coat, and then she took a seat in the recliner on the opposite side of the room.

It wasn't lost on him that she chose the seat furthest away from him and closest to the door. Well, she remembered her training, at least, he thought, glumly.

When unsure of your present company, never allow them to be between yourself and the nearest exit.

Whether training or instinct, he hated the fact that she felt uncertain in his presence. Of all the things she'd felt for him over the years, the emotions he'd read clearly in her face, distrust wasn't one of them. He sighed.

"So," she ventured, somewhat nervously. "You're the Sheriff of Absaroka County? Sheriff Longmire?"

"Walt," he nodded. "You just call me Walt." He wanted to say more, but the situation was so surreal, and he wasn't much of a talker on his best day. He thought it prudent to let her lead the conversation for the moment.

"Walt," she repeated, seeming to test the feel of the name on her tongue. He didn't see any spark of recognition in her eyes. She motioned toward him. "And you're…"

"The father," he nodded, confirming his place in her life.

A nervous chuff of laughter escaped her, but she cut it off almost before it started. "I was going to say _my boss_ , but…" She shook her head, dazedly.

"Well, yeah, I guess I'm that, too. At least I was before you left Durant," he acknowledged, equally flustered.

"Wow. That's-that's impressive, even for me," she said, self-deprecatingly, her eyebrows raising and her lips turning down in mock admiration.

"Vic, it wasn't uh-it wasn't like that," he said, defending her against her own worst assumptions.

"Really, Walt? Then what was it like?" she asked, disbelievingly, tilting her head to one side.

He was suddenly struck by how odd this all was. In that moment she was so _her_ , and yet there was an obvious difference in her, too.

"That's what I thought," she said, misinterpreting his silence. "Typical Vic though, right?" she said, rhetorically. "I mean, talk about _The Terror_. I really managed to go above and beyond on this one."

"Vic," he tried again, shaking his head. He was heartened to hear that she obviously had some memory of who she was, though, even if it seemed to be a somewhat negative interpretation.

"How long were we together?" she asked, cutting off this train of thought.

That pulled him up short. How could he explain all of their complicated history, everything that had led up to that night in his cabin? All the years and months and minutes that had gotten them to that point? How could he put it all into words?

Those weren't the kinds of things you could _tell_ a person.

"Well," he started. "We weren't _together_ , exactly. Not in the traditional sense. I mean…" he trailed off as he watched her head begin to nod as if to say, _please, continue to confirm my initial impression_. Sighing, he decided to stop talking before he made things exponentially worse. How could he possibly explain what had happened between them when he barely understood it himself? Instead, he asked the one thing he could of her in the moment. "What happened, Vic?"

Her faced changed in response to his question. Her brows drawing together and her teeth dragging worriedly along her bottom lip. After a second her eyes met his and she shrugged, helplessly. "I really don't know," she murmured, apologetically. "I mean, there was an accident…a car accident, but I don't remember it. I just remember waking up in the hospital. I didn't know where I was or…or who I was," she said, shivering slightly as if the memory left her feeling cold. "They ran my information as a Jane Doe, and of course, my prints were in the system in Philly from my days with the PAPD." She laced her fingers together and leaned forward, bracing her forearms on the tops of her thighs and looking down at her hands. Her feet were turned slightly inward, causing her knees to knock together in a youthful way. He stared at her socked feet and thought about how infrequently he'd seen her in this state of casualness. A handful of times, at best. As a rule, Vic was completely put together, at least when he was in her company. There had been the odd occasion, of course-when she'd stayed with him during the Gorski debacle, when he'd gone to evict her from the home that had been hers and Sean's-where he'd caught a glimpse of her like this. He reveled in the moment, and tucked the picture she made away in his mind with the others.

"My parents had been expecting me, and had already called in a missing persons report when they couldn't reach me. It hadn't really been long enough for an official report to be filed, but my Dad called in a favor. By the time my parents made it to Pittsburgh—that's where the accident happened, on I-76, just this side of Pittsburgh," she explained. "Anyway, by the time they made it to the hospital, it was the next morning, and I had remembered who I was…who they were." She looked back up at him then. "I still don't remember the accident. The weather was bad…snow and ice on the roads. A witness came forward to say someone clipped my bumper and put me into the retaining wall. The person who hit me didn't stop, but thankfully a couple who witnessed the accident did. My rental was totaled. I hit my head," she said, her fingers moving, unconsciously, to a place just above her right ear. "The doctors say I was probably unconscious before I even knew what happened, that I'll likely never remember the accident at all because the memory was never formed to begin with. I didn't regain consciousness until I woke up in the ICU."

His stomach churned with acid, imagining her car plowing into the concrete retaining wall. "What about the rest? Have you remembered anything else? I mean, what do the doctors say?"

She nodded. "I've remembered a lot, actually. Bits and pieces, at first, but now I can remember pretty much everything, up to a point. I remember my family, growing up, the academy, meeting Sean…getting married," she added the last a bit awkwardly. "Things get fuzzy after that," she said, blowing out an unsteady breath.

"So you remember Sean," he nodded, trying to tamp down the irrational jealously that suddenly surged through his veins. Did she think they were still married? Did she still love him? It was the last thing she remembered, so he could hardly blame her if…

She seemed to sense his train of thought and hastened to add, "My parents told me about the divorce…about us moving, and separating, and me choosing to stay out west." She paused then, seeming to search for her words. "They said I didn't talk to them much about my life there, but even I know that's just me being me. I mean, I never really kept them in the loop of my comings and goings, even when I was here in Philly." She shifted in the over-sized chair, looking small and unsure. "Anyway, they couldn't offer me much insight into my life out there, other than that I worked for the Sheriff's Department, and that I seemed happy enough with my job. At least until recently. All they knew, for sure, was that I called and said I was coming home." She shrugged, apologetically. "I'm sorry…I don't…I don't remember Wyoming at all."

"No," he shook his head. "Don't apologize. You were in an accident…it's not your fault." He tried to say the right things, the comforting things he knew he should be saying, but his stomach was clenched tight with the knowledge that she didn't remember him at all-not only what they'd shared recently, but everything that had happened between them since the moment she'd walk through the door of his office, all sass and confidence, hell bent on convincing him how much he needed her around.

She'd really had no idea, and neither had he.

"Do they—do they think it'll all come back?" he asked. _Please_. "I mean, eventually?"

She looked apologetic, though she didn't utter the actual words a second time. "They don't know. They say that _usually_ complete recovery does happen, but every case is different. Statistically, in post-traumatic amnesia, resulting from a traumatic brain injury, like mine, only about half of the people recover their memories within a month…the other half take substantially longer. The good news is, I've remembered a lot, and the doctors seem to think that's a good sign." She looked at him, hopefully. "So, they say the best thing I can do is just go about my routine, try to stay relaxed, and let the memories come back as they come back. They say I shouldn't focus too much on _trying_ to remember, that I should just let it happen." She took a deep breath and leaned back in the recliner, placing a gentle hand on the thickness below her navel. "Which, given current circumstances, is easier said than done."

His eyes were glued to her hand, a hand he knew to be capable and strong, but that now appeared so incredibly small and feminine as it rested there against the irrefutable proof of the life they'd created together.

"What happened between us?" she asked, quietly, her eyes studying his face, intently.

He shifted, uncomfortably, knowing how impossible it was going to be to explain their entire relationship to her.

"Did we—I mean, did I," she paused, looking down, steeling herself for his answer. "Did I have an affair with you?" she asked, quietly. "Did I cheat on my husband?" her voice trembled, barely more than a whisper.

His head drew back, sharply. "No!" he declared, adamantly. "No, Vic…we never," he shook his head. "Nothing ever happened between you and I before your divorce."

She looked doubtful, and he sat forward, forearms resting on his knees, mimicking her earlier pose. "Look, maybe we were closer than we should have been," he allowed, trying his best to be completely honest with her. "But I swear to you, nothing physical ever happened between us before you and Sean were completely over." He stared into her eyes, allowing her to search the depths of his own for the truth of his words.

Finally seeming to accept what he was telling her as fact, she nodded. "When I talked to him…Sean implied," she trailed off.

It was obvious what Sean had implied. The little prick. Walt might have felt bad for the guy if he really believed that Sean thought Vic had cheated on him. The truth of the matter was that Sean was still pissed off at Vic, and this had just been a way to kick her while she was down, make her doubt her own character while she was too vulnerable to stick up for herself. Walt would like to punch that bastard in the face if he could get his hands on him.

"Hey," she said, softly, placing a hand on his cheek.

She must've seen the murderous look come into his eyes because she smiled, trying to soften the rage that was solidifying in his gut. He felt so powerless in the face of her amnesia, that channeling all of his emotion into anger and then beating the shit out of her ex-husband sounded like the best idea he'd had in years, but her small, warm hand against his cheek and the clearness in her moss-colored eyes quelled his anger for the moment, banking it into a pile of burning embers that could be stoked to life at some other, more appropriate point in time.

"You were going to tell me what happened between us." She sat back in the recliner once again, letting her hand fall away from his cheek. "If we didn't have an affair, what _did_ happen?"

He looked around the room, his eyes landing on a cushioned ottoman to his left. Dragging it over, he arranged it directly across from the recliner and sat, facing her. He looked into her expectant face and knew, despite his discomfort, that he had to try to put their relationship into words. He decided to be as simple, but as honest, as he could. He'd give her the facts as he knew them, no embellishments.

He took a deep breath and plowed ahead.

"When you and Sean moved to Wyoming, you came and applied for a job in the Sheriff's department, just like your parents said," he began. "You were more than qualified, and I was happy to give you the job. We had an opening, and I liked you." He smiled, lopsidedly. "Right off, I liked you." He placed one large palm on his right knee and rested his other elbow on his left, settling in to tell her their story. "We worked really well together, and before long we—we settled in to a nice routine. From the beginning, I think we were closer than Sean would've liked, but there was nothing going on. Not then." He paused, trying to feel his way along the pathway their lives had taken. "Did Sean tell you about what happened two years ago?"

She shook her head. "We didn't talk very long, actually," she replied.

He nodded and continued, mindful of what she'd said about the doctors' advice to let things come back to her slowly and naturally. _Keep things simple_ , he reminded himself. "Well, there was an accident, and a mix-up with the local criminal element—you and Sean got caught in the cross-fire. Whatever issues you were already having…the fallout from that seemed to put the final nail in the coffin of your marriage."

"So, after that, you and I…" she trailed off, questioningly.

He chuffed out an uncomfortable laugh. "Not exactly," he said, shaking his head. "Vic, I'm not the easiest man to get to know, and you…it was complicated with you and I. I knew there was something there between us, but for various and sundry reasons, we just never really addressed it." He stopped, reminding himself about the _honest_ part of this story he was telling. "No, that's not true… _you_ addressed it…or you tried to, but I didn't let you. As close as we had been before your divorce, after Sean left, I kind of pushed you away. I'm sorry for that," he said, surprising himself with the need he felt to seek her forgiveness for how he'd treated her in the weeks and months following the break-up of her marriage. He cringed when he thought about his decision to take up with Donna Monahan, but pushed that aside for another day.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, innocently. "Push me away? You said you knew there was something between us…"

 _I was scared_ , he thought, but didn't say. Right now the only impression she had of him was the picture he was painting right now, and he didn't want to taint that vision with…the truth. He sighed. "Fear, insecurity," he acknowledged. "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a bit of an age difference between us," he teased, trying to make light of it, trying not to let her see that the same doubts _still_ lingered in the back of his mind.

She _had_ noticed. But she'd also noticed the handsome set of his jaw, the sturdy masculinity in the breadth of this chest and the broadness of his shoulders, and the look in his eyes whenever he allowed his gaze to settle on hers for any length of time. "Oh, is that all?" she smiled, winking flirtatiously, and allowing the awkwardness to slip away in the comfort of mutual amusement. She realized it couldn't be easy for this obviously stoic cowboy to be discussing his feelings and motives so openly, and she truly appreciated the effort.

It wasn't easy for her to look the father of her child in the face and not be able to remember the moment that child was conceived, either. Some things would just never be easy.

"So, what happened to finally…you know," she gestured a forward motion with her hand.

He told her about that night, then. About Cady's fear for his safety, and her willingness to come look for him. He told her about finding her in the lake, about tossing her onto Lady's bare back and galloping back to the cabin. In soft tones, and with often-averted eyes, he told her that he'd removed her wet clothes and redressed her in warm, dry things, that he'd held her in his arms in the warmth of the firelight, and that, at some point in the wee hours of the morning they had both awakened. He'd trailed off there, leaving the rest to her imagination.

From the rosy color that had risen high in her cheeks, he imagined she'd had no problem deducing the rest.

"When I woke up in the morning, you were gone," he finished, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

"I left you? I left you there alone?" she asked, surprised and shocked at her own cowardice. "Why would I do that?" she wondered aloud.

"I can't answer that," he said, shaking his head, still wondering about that very thing, himself. "I could hazard a guess, but Vic…that'd be all it is…a guess. I can tell you that we'd had a lot of ups and downs before that night…many of which were my fault. And I want to be honest with you right now and tell you that in the weeks following that night I was not exactly kind to you. I was confused and…upset, but that's no excuse. I can see now that you were probably just as mixed up about what happened as I was. More so, I imagine, once you found out about the…" he nodded toward the soft roundness of her belly.

"You imagine? You mean…I didn't tell you?" she asked, shock evident in her voice. "I left Wyoming without telling you about the baby?" she clarified, self-accusation ringing loud and clear in her voice. Obviously, she'd been under the impression that she'd left Wyoming the expectant mother of an unwanted child…at least where said child's father was concerned, anyway.

Her question marked the first time either of them had used the word _baby_ aloud, and they both seemed to realize it at the same time, a sudden hush falling between them. It lasted for nearly a full minute, until finally she was able to gather her wits enough to form words once again.

"I thought...I-I thought," she stammered, then faltered. Then, seeming to regroup, she started again. "How did you know then?" she asked, obviously still struggling to understand why she would leave town without telling him about their baby. He'd like to know the answer to that particular question, himself. He was still so angry with her for that, and yet…as he gazed across the small space between them, his eyes drinking in the Vic who sat before him, _Victoria_ , as she'd introduced herself at the door, he knew that this woman had no answers for him. She was as in the dark as he was, more so, in many ways.

"Cady opened a letter of yours by mistake. She saw the logo from her doctor's office and opened it without realizing it was addressed to you. She didn't realize that the two of you had the same doctor. It was an honest mistake," he offered, defending his daughter. "Anyway, it was a past due bill. It was itemized…some lab results, an ultrasound, and a prescription for prenatal vitamins with extra iron." He scrubbed his palm across his jaw, uncomfortably. "You don't have to worry about the bill, by the way, I took care of it."

He wasn't asking for thanks or praise, she realized. He was simply stating a fact.

"You didn't have to do that," she murmured, barely audibly. "I mean, I appreciate it, it's just…it's not your responsibility."

"It's most definitely my responsibility," he countered, the look in his eyes daring her to argue.

The truth was, she couldn't. He was the father of her child. She believed him. She really didn't _know_ that he was her baby's father, but she believed that he was telling her the truth to the best of his knowledge.

Suddenly her inability to remember her baby's father made her ache in a way she'd managed to mostly suppress up to this point. The truth was, she'd harbored anger and resentment for the asshole she'd invented in her head, the one who'd been indifferent to her pregnancy, had likely wanted her to end it, prompting her to leave Absaroka County and head home to her family in Philly, knowing they'd embrace her with open arms—judge her and lecture her, of course, but embrace her, embrace them, nonetheless. But it had all been a lie she'd been telling herself. At the very least, it had been a huge miscalculation of the truth. Because the truth was, she'd left Wyoming without telling Walt she was pregnant. It was _she_ who'd been the asshole in the scenario.

She'd obviously known because she'd already been to see the doctor. So why had she kept it a secret? What if the baby wasn't his? What if he only assumed it was? Or what if he wasn't being totally honest about what had happened between them? He'd said he'd been unkind to her in the weeks following their night together…was he down-playing that? Had his actions been enough to drive her away without telling him something so life-altering-ly important?

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back in the chair. She was suddenly exhausted.

"Are you okay," he asked, sounding concerned.

His large hand landed just above her knee, and her eyes flew open in response.

"Sorry," he murmured, immediately withdrawing his touch.

Nevertheless, the imprint of his hand seemed to linger there on her skin. She was almost certain if she peeled away the thin material of her yoga pants right this minute she'd see the perfect outline of his fingers along the top of her thigh.

"I'm fine," she replied, swallowing hard. "I just get tired easily these days, and this evening has been a lot to take in."

He nodded, accepting her answer, remembering how frequently Martha had napped when she'd been pregnant with Cady. She'd had a pretty uneventful pregnancy, and they'd always talked about having more…for whatever reason, it just hadn't been in the cards. "Do you know what it is yet?" he asked, not really remembering when it is you can find out the sex of the baby.

"No, not yet," she said, shaking her head. "I think I will though," she confided, eyes shining just the slightest bit with emotion. "I've had enough surprises lately. I think I want to be able to plan a little bit, ya know?"

He nodded, caught up in his own thoughts about where he'd be when she found out, if he'd be with her, if she'd call him immediately…if she'd call him at all. She really didn't owe him that call, he realized. Even though her baby was his, for all intents and purposes, they were strangers as far as she was concerned.

He stood, suddenly, needing some time alone to think. He turned, looking for the coat he'd cast aside when he'd first entered her apartment.

He was leaving, she realized, and though a moment ago she would have given anything for him to leave her alone with her own thoughts for a while, a part of her, deep inside, panicked now at the thought of him leaving. It was irrational, and she didn't know if it was hormonal-something pregnancy-related-or some subconscious connection to him, but she knew she didn't want him to leave…not when she was finally figuring out the truth.

"Wait!" she called, louder than was necessary given the relatively small size of the room. He paused and stared at her, silently, causing her cheeks to pinken in light of her sudden outburst. She took a deep breath. "You don't have to go. You could stay here," she offered, quietly. "I mean, you came here to see me, right?"

When he didn't offer a response, she continued. "I'm really tired, and I'm sure you are, too, after coming all the way here, and we could probably both use some time to decompress, but-" she cut herself off, realizing she was rambling. "We could table this for tonight, get some rest, and then talk some more tomorrow, okay?"

He stood there, hesitating, in the middle of her living room. Of course, he didn't want to leave. After weeks of strain between them and then months of wondering if or when she might ever come back, just about the last thing he wanted to do was walk out that door right now. He didn't think he could handle any more talking tonight though. But she was offering a reprieve…rest, and a fresh start in the morning.

"Come on, Walt," she chided, smiling hopefully, and for an instant she was _her_ again, his Vic…the one he knew better, more intimately, than just about anyone else in his life.

"Okay," he found himself saying, because, honestly, when had he ever _truly_ been able to resist her?

She grinned. "I'll grab you some blankets."


	5. Chapter 5

a/n: Sorry for the long wait! For those that have kept after me about this story, thank you! Your dedication got me going again after life intervened. I hope I give you the story you're hoping for!

Soft, mid-morning light streamed through the bedroom window, warming Vic's down comforter to a temperature so deliciously perfect she thought she might never leave the comfort of her bed again; however, the allure of a certain handsome cowboy was calling her name. That fact along with an ungodly pressure on her bladder eventually forced her from the coziness of her quilted bedding.

Shifting the linen into a heap on one side of her queen-sized bed, she rose and shuffled on socked feet into the bathroom. Then, after washing her face and dragging a brush through her hair, she finally made her way downstairs, feeling slightly more human.

Rounding the corner into the living room, she found Walt already wide awake and fully dressed, standing near the picture window which overlooked the street out front.

He pointed to a stack of books sitting on a low end table. "Little light reading?" he asked.

There was an odd tone in his voice that she took immediate note of. Not accusation exactly. Trepidation, maybe? She navigated the space between them tentatively, as if her living room had suddenly become a minefield.

Her eyes fell to the table as she stopped just short of where he stood. The textbooks stood in a drunken stack, the creased spines of _Modern Exterior Ballistics_ , _Practical Analysis and Reconstruction of Shooting Incidents_ , and _Applied Ballistics for Long Range Shooting_ providing a telling snapshot of her current coursework.

"I'm enrolled at Saint Joseph's for the winter semester," she admitted, self-consciously.

She had no idea what his reaction to this news would be, and she was nervous as hell about going back to school. She'd never been a great student. Sitting still for any length of time had never been especially easy for her, but she knew she had a knack for this field of study. It came easy to her, and she needed to do _something_. She wasn't physically ready to return to work, and by the time she would be ready it would be quite obvious she was pregnant. No one was going to hire a pregnant cop to ride a desk and take maternity leave, not even as a favor to her dad. Not that she would ask. Things with her Dad had been pretty strained since she'd told him about the baby.

Anyway, taking her career in this more cerebral direction would provide her with a little more stability and safety in the long run. Neither had been big concerns of hers before, but both seemed exponentially more important now.

"I'm going to get my Master's," she explained, her eyes tracking his, gauging his reaction. "I want to specialize in ballistics. It's just safer, you know?" she asked, hoping he would understand. She was really at a loss here. She had no idea how this man standing before her felt about anything…about her. No idea how he dealt with things when he was upset or caught off guard.

When he only continued to stare at her in silence, she mumbled, defensively, "This was always my plan. You know, before…" _Before my life got away from me, and I forgot who I was_ , she thought. "Before I met Ed Gorski," she said. Before Sean and the divorce, before Wyoming…before Walt. Her life had taken a lot of turns, some good, some bad, some she didn't even remember, but for the sake of her child, she _was_ going to get her shit together now.

He remained completely silent, and she realized suddenly that she was assuming he knew her well enough to know about the unhealthy relationship she'd developed with Ed early in her career. Maybe he didn't…

"Ed Gorski was-" she started to explain.

"I know who Gorski is," he muttered, distractedly.

She fell silent, unsure what to say.

Walt's ears were ringing. She was staying in Philadelphia.

He'd only just managed to track her down and now…now what? He'd hoped to convince her to come back to Wyoming with him but it seemed she was settling in here for the long haul. And how could he really blame her, given the circumstances? The damnable part of it was that this entire situation was his fault. If he'd just managed to pull his head out of his ass after her divorce instead of running around with Donna Monahan, none of this would be happening now.

The bottom line was Vic had scared the hell out of him, but she'd been worth the risk, and he'd been too chicken shit to take it.

When it came right down to it, though, he knew why. He wasn't a gambling man. It simply wasn't in his nature. He was careful.

He assessed risk. He weighed options. He considered. He calculated.

He tried his best to never be surprised by life, by circumstance.

But he'd never seen Victoria Moretti coming.

Falling in love with her had upended his life like nothing else ever had.

Loving Martha, having Cady…those were joyous moments in his life, for sure, but they had been expected. As a young man, he'd anticipated finding a sweet woman to marry, fathering her children. And when Martha passed on before him, finding a suitable replacement had been expected, too, but he could have never anticipated the way that Vic would come breezing into his life and send it careening out of control. For Walt Longmire, falling in love with his married deputy, his _much younger,_ married deputy, was about as out of character as if he'd woken up one day with the sudden overwhelming desire to chuck it all and become a pirate. He'd been left flailing. It was like some sort of mid-life crisis had been thrust upon him. If fact, a terrified part of him had believed that was exactly what was happening. At first he'd been horrified at the thought that Vic would see it, that she'd recognize the desire, the irrational jealousy, the love that bled into all of his dealings with her, that she'd see it and laugh at the pathetic middle-aged man with a hard-on for his young subordinate. But the reality had been even more distressing…because one day he'd caught her eye and realized that she was looking at him the same way he looked at her.

He'd wondered, feared, and, finally, known for sure in that seedy little hotel bar.

They'd been following that Russian girl, Polina, through the desert, and that night Vic'd been identifying with her, admitting she'd walked a few miles in the younger girl's shoes. He'd been captivated by her in that moment, every inappropriate thing he'd ever felt for her right there on his face, plain as day, he was certain.

 _But we all just want the same thing_ , she'd said, turning to look at him when he'd remained, suspiciously, silent.

He'd continued to stare, unable to form words.

 _What?_ she'd asked, sitting up a little straighter, as if she'd sensed the significance of the moment.

Her voice had been quieter then, her eyes locked on his, and he'd so very nearly told her.

He'd nearly told her everything, and then dragged her back to their adjoining rooms in their shitty little hotel in the middle of nowhere and buried himself so far inside of her that something in them touched and made it impossible for them to ever be two separate beings again. Her marriage be damned. Their jobs be damned.

But at the last moment he'd managed to reign it all in.

He'd tried to pull away from her after that night, to keep himself separate, only to be overcome by his emotions weeks later, when the thought of losing her at the hands of Chance Gilbert had compelled him to pull her into his arms. He'd tucked her beneath his chin, folded her neatly right up against his heart, and that'd been it. Those brief moments, holding her body pressed closely to his, had been some of the most brightly illuminated moments of his entire life. He knew that when his time came, and his life flashed before his eyes, nothing more than quick successions of faded photographs, those moments would stand out in brilliant technicolor.

But nothing had changed, and as life moved forward, he'd found himself unable to change what had always been.

He realized now it'd been incredibly cowardly of him to hide behind the safety net of a commitment to Donna Monahan, at Vic's expense, no less. There really was no excuse for it, but that's exactly what he'd been doing: hiding. Like a little boy behind the skirt of his mother.

And he was ashamed.

And he was sorry.

Because, in the end, it had cost him, dearly.

Because now here they were…thousands of miles from home, practically strangers. The Vic he'd been too afraid to admit he loved was lost somewhere inside this unfamiliar version of her. She wanted to stay in Philadelphia and he had to go back to Wyoming. Even if he was willing to leave, the people of Absaroka County counted on him to keep them safe, and he couldn't just turn his back on that responsibility. Besides, who would he be if not Sheriff of Absaroka County? It was such a part of him, after all these years. And on top of everything else, he had to provide for the child he'd created. He couldn't really afford to just up and retire now.

His eyes found the soft bump beneath her cotton t-shirt, and he took comfort in that physical tether to her. Their child was like a string, connecting them despite all the obstacles that stood in their way. Maybe…

"Would you," he stopped, clearing his throat. "Would you be willing to consider coming back to Durant?"

Vic worried her bottom lip with her teeth for several seconds before replying. "Walt," she started, uncertainly.

He watched as she crossed one arm across her middle, holding her opposite elbow, and dropping her eyes to the floor near her feet. His heart sank. She was going to say no.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now," she said, apologetically.

He nodded in understanding, even as his lips formed words of their own accord. "Didn't the doctors say it was important to go about your life as usual?"

"They did," she conceded, nodding, her eyes finding their way back up to meet his.

"This isn't your life, Vic. Philadelphia…it isn't home," he tried to convince her. "Absaroka, Durant…that's home," he implored. _Me. I'm home._

"Walt, I—I'm enrolled in school here. My doctors are here. My OB. My neurosurgeon." She shrugged, helplessly. "I still get headaches. I can't just up and leave."

He nodded. He'd known her answer, even as he'd formed the question in his mind.

He'd had to ask though. Because all those months ago, when he should have asked the right questions, should have said the right things, he hadn't, and he'd never forgive himself for that.

He looked at her now and thought how strange it was to have her at such a disadvantage. He knew so much about them that she didn't know, so much about _her_ that she didn't know. Oftentimes, he felt ten paces behind Vic in any conversation involving their relationship, but right now she appeared so lost. She looked so familiar to his practiced eyes, and yet he knew that to her he was still a mystery. He didn't want to make this harder for her.

"Okay," he said. "I understand."

"Walt?" she asked, softly. "Why didn't you come after me?"

His eyes shot to hers. That was not where he'd expected this conversation to go.

She shifted on her feet, feeling self-conscious. Why had he only come for her when he'd found out about the baby? Did he love her? Or was he just here out of a sense of duty? "Why did it take you this long to come to Philly? You must have known this is where I was?"

Her words from a few months ago floated back to him.

 _I'm taking a leave of absence, Walt. I need some time. And I don't want you to call me, or come see me, or try to guilt me into coming back here before I'm ready. I may never be ready, and if I can be happy somewhere else, you have to let me._

He'd screwed things up with her so badly, he'd honestly thought she'd be better off starting over in Philadelphia without him. Of course, he'd been miserable without her, and he'd made everyone around him equally miserable in her absence, but he'd thought she had a chance at starting over, at finding the happiness she deserved. He'd known she was pissed at him, and hurt over the way things had played out between them. He'd never in a million years thought something had happened to her. It wasn't until he'd found out about her pregnancy that he'd known why she'd left in such a hurry.

"You asked me not to," he said, simply.

"I asked you not to follow me?" she asked, incredulously. "I left town without telling you about the baby I knew I was having, and then I specifically asked you not to follow me?" Her brow furrowed. "Well, didn't you at least want to call me?"

"You asked me not to contact you," he said, holding back a grimace. He knew that sounded bad. She was going to think he was some type of ogre she'd been afraid of or something.

"Walt," she asked, quietly, her eyes suddenly sad.

"What?" he near-whispered, concerned by her sudden change in tone.

"Are you sure this baby is yours?"


	6. Chapter 6

**a/n: Thank you all for the wonderful reviews and words of encouragement! They really do make a difference!**

"Are you sure this baby is yours?"

"Of course I'm…" he trailed off, thoughts of Eamonn, swirling around in his brain. He thought back to the weeks before she'd left Durant. Their relationship had been so strained after the night they'd spent together. Then she'd been gone. When he'd found out about the baby it'd suddenly all made sense. Her abrupt departure, her desire to be left alone. He'd been so sure he was the father of her baby, but now…without her ability to confirm it…could he really know for sure?

"Walt?" she said, questioningly.

"I think maybe I should go-" he started, taking a step toward the door.

"Walt, wait," she said, reaching out, placing a hand on his arm.

He paused, watching her face. Her eyes looked large and sad.

She hesitated then, unsure what to say to him. She _thought_ he was her baby's father. Some part of her wanted him to be. Even though she didn't know him…some part of her _did_. He was here. That's the kind of man he was. She wasn't sure if he loved her, but he obviously cared about her to a certain extent, and he clearly wanted a part in his child's life…if it _was_ his child. She didn't want him to leave like this, and yet, how could she ask him to stay?

She couldn't go with him. She wasn't even sure he'd want her to now, given the question she'd just posed, and yet she didn't want him to just disappear from her life. He was the first thing about the more recent years of her life that made sense to her, the first connection she'd found to the person she'd been just prior to her accident, and it seemed she'd said the one thing that could push him the furthest away.

She stood, frozen, wanting him to stay, but unable to ask him to.

Seeming to understand her struggle somehow, Walt reached out and cupped her cheek in his large work-roughened hand. "I think we both just need a little time…" He trailed off, his hand falling away. "But if you need me, you know where to find me."

Something in her settled a little at that. He wouldn't disappear. He just needed to step back, get some perspective. She couldn't blame him. She could use some of that, herself. He sounded tired, and she felt bad, but the truth was, she couldn't begin to explain her own actions, and until she could, she had to ask the hard questions.

She watched him take another step toward the door, another step away from her.

"The truth is, I left Durant in a bit of a hurry, and I should be getting back there," he said, gruffly. "I really do think we could use a little time after everything that's happened, don't you?"

She nodded, numbly.

Her eyes were stinging, and she hated the thought that she might cry in front of him. It didn't seem like something she would do, and in this moment, she really needed to feel like herself. Despite the threat of eminent embarrassment should her tears gain the upper hand and break free, she kept her eyes steadily on his, loathe to be the one to break the connection first.

A clanging chime from the front door jarred them from the moment, sparing them both the unpleasant task of being the first to look away. A key in the lock alerted Vic that the unexpected visitor was her mother. No one else would let themselves in unannounced.

"Victoria!" came Lena Moretti's voice from the entryway. "Victoria, are you up?"

They watched as she rounded the corner into the living room.

"Oh! There you are, I-" She stopped speaking abruptly, her footsteps slowing. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you had company." She halted just inside the living room, staring at Walt in surprise. "It seems like I'm interrupting something important, so…" She let her words trail off. "You know what, I can just come back later," she said, already beginning to move back the way she'd come.

Walt reached out a hand in supplication. "No, please…stay." He glanced back at Vic before picking up his hat where it sat, upside down, on the end table near the couch where he'd slept. "I was just on my way out."

"Are you sure?" the older woman asked, glancing back and forth between them, uncertainly.

"I'm sure." He turned to Vic. "If you need anything…just call the station. Ruby will patch you through."

She nodded, unable to form any words.

Seeming to make some sort of a decision then, he nodded, saying, "Okay then." He placed his hat on his head as he entered the front hallway and tipped it, silently, in Lena's direction, before letting himself out into the cold morning.

Vic stared at the closed door for an indefinite period of time, startling violently when her mother's hand landed on her back.

"Victoria, are you okay, honey?" she asked, softly.

"Mom, that was-" Vic whispered.

"Walt Longmire," Lena finished.

Vic turned to face her mother, surprised. "Yes, that was Walt, but he's-"

"The father," Lena finished, knowingly.

Vic stood gaping at her mother. "How did you…you said I never talked about Wyoming," Vic said, accusation marring her words.

"I said you didn't say _much_ about Wyoming, Victoria. What you _did_ say…" she paused. "Well, what you did say usually revolved around him," she explained. "And most bosses I know don't track former employees halfway across the country, friend or no," she finished, pointedly.

Vic crossed her arms below her breasts, and took two steps back. "Mom, if you thought Walt was the father of my baby, how could you not tell me?"

"How could I, Victoria?" she asked, incredulously. "More importantly, _why_ would I? So, you could go back there and have him tell you a _second_ time that he didn't want you? Didn't want the baby?"

Vic blanched at that, and Lena's face softened in response.

"Oh, honey, exactly. I didn't want you to get hurt again. As tough as you are, you wear that heart of yours right on your sleeve." She stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on Vic's folded arm. "If he wasn't the man you needed him to be then, he isn't going to suddenly become that now. You're better off just-"

"He didn't know, Mom," Vic interrupted, cutting off her mother's unsolicited advice. She let her arms fall to her sides, breaking the contact her mother had initiated.

"What?" she asked, surprised.

"I said, he didn't know. I never told him about the baby," Vic admitted, ashamedly.

"Victoria!" Lena admonished.

"I know, Mom," she said, curtly, holding up a hand to stop the reprimand that she knew was coming.

"Why not?" the older Moretti asked, her tone going purposefully softer.

"I don't know," Vic said, helplessly, shaking her head.

* * *

Hours later Vic sat alone on her living room floor in a patch of warm sunlight. The doctors had encouraged her to spend some time each day meditating, and though she was certain it was something she would have never considered doing before, these days she found herself willing to consider anything the experts believed might increase her chances of remembering her former life. The specialist she'd seen right after the accident had explained that giving the brain time to wander freely over past experiences without the interruption of outside stimuli could sometimes allow bits and pieces to filter back in, which could in turn trigger the return of new, more significant memories. And it worked. Several of her more significant memories had come back to her during moments of quiet reflection.

She sat cross legged, her hands resting loosely in her lap. She wasn't really into yoga and the like, but she did her best to get into what she figured approximated a meditation-friendly pose. She made a concentrated effort to relax her muscles, allowing her shoulders to drop and her hands to fall open, palms up, against the tops of her thighs. It was important for her to be as comfortable as possible when she did this.

Her hair was twisted into a messy bun that rested high on the crown of her head, and she'd traded in the clothes she'd worn earlier in the day for an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of black, cotton shorts. The room was still a bit chilly outside the warm square of sunlight she now resided in, so in a nod to the weather, she'd donned a pair of white, cotton ankle socks to ward off any chill that might distract her from her focused contemplation. The house was silent except for the ticking of a small metronome which rested on the floor beside her. The monotonous ticking was supposed to provide a sort of metered white noise that would allow her brain to focus internally instead of on external ambient noises. She breathed deeply, in through her nose, out through her mouth, and let her mind wander.

She thought back to that first night in the hospital. She remembered waking up alone in intensive care, the beeps and the antiseptic smells having drifted into her consciousness before she'd become fully aware of her surroundings. Her eyes had fluttered open to find the room empty, save a single nurse who'd been shuffling around in the semi-darkness, checking the connections of her various tubes and monitoring the settings on her IV pump.

Once the woman had realized her patient was awake she'd turned on a low light and began asking her some seemingly simple questions. She'd asked her if she knew where she was, what had happened to her, what day it was. She hadn't seemed too concerned when the answer to each of those questions was _no_ , but when she'd asked Vic who she should call for her and Vic had only been able to stare at her, helplessly, the nurse's brow had creased in concern.

"Do you know what your name is?" she'd asked, gently.

Vic had felt her eyes fill with instant, hot tears then, because in that terrifying moment, she'd had no idea.

She'd never felt as alone in her entire life as she had for those first few hours after waking, when she hadn't even had the comfort of her own memories to keep her company. It'd been nearly unbearable until the doctor had come to see her and update her on her condition. He was a tall, middle-aged, Asian man with kind eyes and an infectious smile. He'd explained that she shouldn't be scared, that aside from the bump on her head she had no major injuries, no internal bleeding or broken bones, that the memory loss she was suffering was most likely temporary, and that most importantly, she and her baby were just fine.

She found it hard even now, months later, to define the odd mix of shock, terror, joy, and relief that had flooded through her the moment she'd learned of her baby's existence. She hadn't known her own name, but she'd known that she was her baby's mom. All at once, she hadn't been alone at all.

This baby had been like a life line to cling to at a time in her life that'd been utterly terrifying. It had kept her tethered to the life she'd led before, even when she couldn't remember that life at all.

Of course, now she knew that she had known about the baby before the accident. Until yesterday she hadn't been sure. Though she had assumed the baby was why she'd come home to Philly, she'd had no way to know that for sure. She'd only known, after speaking to her parents, that she'd called to say she was coming home and that she hadn't arrived when they'd expected her to.

It was true that she'd felt utterly alone in the world that day, but she knew now that she never truly had been. She'd had her baby, and her family, and even Walt.

She focused on the emotions she'd felt during that whole experience. The fear. The loneliness. The relief. The happiness. There was a familiar cycle to it.

She focused harder.

There was something…

Suddenly, she understood.

She was remembering another time she'd come to in a hospital, another time she'd awakened feeling scared and alone. This time she had stirred and woken up to an empty room, no concerned nurse there to allay her fears.

Something had happened to her shoulder, she remembered, feeling a slight twinge high on the right side of her back. She focused on the sensation, allowing the sense memory to unfurl. It felt sharp, stinging, like she was being poked with a needle, but faster, harder. Something with impact. Something like a…dart? Her senses flared in response. Yes, a dart!

Some sort of tranquilizer dart…

She remembered now, the feeling of dizziness pulling her under even as she railed at the person who'd shot her.

She'd been working, and it had happened in the line of duty. She'd been in the forest.

In Wyoming.

She'd awakened at the hospital, and then, just like the other time, a nurse had asked her if there was anyone she'd like for them to call. She remembered telling the woman _no_ and feeling slightly sorry for herself, knowing that Sean was out of town, and that even if he wasn't she didn't really want him there anyway. She remembered wondering if she even liked Sean anymore, who he was as a person. She remembered feeling guilty for the way her heart beat just a little faster when Walt walked into the room, unexpectedly. Some part of her had known he'd come to check in on her, and he had. She remembered thinking that there was something so _good_ about him, so admirable and dependable and worthy.

A smile spread across her lips.

Walt.

She remembered.

She tried not to get too excited. It wasn't much, just a glimmer, but seeing him again had stirred something in her consciousness. She knew there was so much more waiting for her, and it was frightening, like riding giant ocean waves on a tiny raft, knowing all the while that the vast unknown waited just below the surface.

She had a sense that the waves were rising, and the first one had just breached her tiny vessel.


	7. Chapter 7

**a/n: You guys are keeping me going! Thank you for all of the encouragement!**

It had been nearly two weeks since Walt had gone back to Wyoming, and Vic had thought about him every single day. She'd tried, at first, to justify it, but she couldn't even blame the obvious reason: that he was most likely the father of her baby, or the second most obvious reason: that she'd caused him to seriously question the baby's paternity. The things she thought about were, for the most part, not related to the baby at all.

They were silly things, really, things she couldn't readily explain. For example, yesterday she'd been reading about a controversial new theory in Applied Ballistics, and she'd found herself thinking _I bet Walt would think that's a bunch of BS._ And just this morning she'd seen a commercial promoting legalized marijuana in the Northwest, and she'd stopped to wonder what Walt would think about the idea. It was like her brain was suddenly programmed to run every thought past an imaginary version of him, awaiting his approval or dismissal before moving on.

So, it was no surprise to her that she was thinking about him when her phone rang as she was leaving class. It was, however, a significant surprise to hear his voice on the other end of the line when she played back the voicemail he'd left her.

"Hey Vic," he said, a little too loudly. "This is my new number. I just wanted you to have it. So, uh…now you do." There was a brief pause, and she listened to the gentle pops and hisses of static filling the void until he seemed to find the words he'd been searching for. "Anyway, call me if you need anything or if you just want to talk."

It was obvious he was uncomfortable, but whether it was because he was calling her or because he wasn't much of a conversationalist, in general, she wasn't sure. She called him back as she was climbing into her car. She'd just started driving herself again when the winter semester started, with her doctors' permission, of course.

Her parents were letting her use their extra vehicle. It was an SUV that was a few years old but in good repair. Her dad had insisted she drive it rather than the car because _in her condition_ the SUV was much safer. She'd been silently pleased that he seemed to at least be concerned for the baby, even if he still didn't appear to be pleased with the situation.

"Hello," came Walt's voice from the other end of the line. He sounded guardedly hopeful.

"Hey, Walt. It's me, Victoria. Vic," she corrected, using the nickname that seemed uncomfortable on her own tongue, but that he seemed to be more accustomed to using than her given name. "I just got your message."

"Oh, hey, Vic. It's uh…it's really good to hear from you. Good to hear your voice," he said, sounding genuinely pleased.

"How are you?" she asked, wondering if he'd been thinking about her half as much as she'd been thinking about him these past couple of weeks.

"I'm good, how are you?" he countered.

"I'm fine," Vic replied.

"And the baby?" he asked, his voice lowering as though he were trying to preserve some privacy.

"We're both fine," she murmured, smiling softly.

"Good. That's good, Vic. So, you're taking care of yourself then? Getting lots of rest and eating right and-"

"Walt, we're _fine_ ," she replied, chuckling softly. "I promise I'm doing all of those things."

"Oh, okay," he murmured, sounding contrite. "It's just…you don't always."

"I don't always, what?" she asked, defensively.

"You don't always take good care of yourself," he replied, softly. "Sometimes you push yourself too hard. On a case or…I don't know. You don't sleep like you should. You don't eat." He paused, again. "I just worry that with school and everything…" He let his words taper off, the implication clear.

"I know I can be a little…focused," she admitted. "I've always been that way, but I am being careful, Walt." She hoped he knew that about her. That despite her tendency to be sort of intense, nothing would prevent her from taking good care of her body during this pregnancy. She hoped that much of who she was had become apparent to him in the time they'd known each other.

As if he'd heard the note of defensiveness in her voice he replied, "You're going to be a great mother, Vic. I don't doubt that for a second." His voice held conviction. He believed what he was saying.

Her throat tightened.

She suddenly realized that no one had told her that before. Her family had been great. Everyone had been worried for her, and then worried for the baby once she'd told them of its existence. But once they were both in the clear, physically, her family's worry had shifted to general concern for her situation, and their anxieties had, over time, intensified her own doubts and fears.

It was unexpectedly healing to hear someone sound so confident of her abilities. Especially someone who held such a stake in the matter.

"Thank you," she managed, clearing her throat.

"You're welcome," he replied, genuinely. "How's school?" he asked, obviously trying to lighten the moment.

"It's great," she brightened, happy to switch to a topic that didn't hold so much emotional impact for either of them. She went on to tell him about her first week of classes, which professor she thought was brilliant, and who she thought was a complete hack. Eventually, she even picked his brain about that new ballistics theory. It was a great conversation, and she was sad when it came to an end.

 _It feels like I've known him for years_ , she thought, and then laughed at herself, because, of course, she had.

* * *

Vic sat in the bath with her feet propped up on the edge of the tub, munching happily on frozen grapes. They were the dark purple, Concord kind, and her eyes practically rolled back in her head with bliss each time she popped another frigid little morsel into her mouth. Partially thawed now, they burst when she bit down on them and filled her mouth with the sweetest juice she thought she'd ever tasted. Something about pregnancy had made her appreciate the taste, smell, and texture of food so much more. At least, since she'd made it past the first trimester, anyway. There'd been a few weeks there where food had definitely not been her friend. Now, however, she was making up for lost time. Her obstetrician had told her that women typically craved what they needed more of in their diet…salt, sweet, dairy, protein, whatever, and she was denying this baby nothing. So, within reason, if she craved something, she ate it.

She bit down on another grape and wiped the dribble of juice that spurted onto her chin with the back of her hand, enjoying the contrast between the cold grape and the warm water of the bath. It wasn't quite as hot as she'd like it to be, a concession to her pregnancy, but it still felt really nice to just relax in the warm water. She'd been running around a little crazy for the past couple of weeks, and now, at seventeen weeks' gestation, she was beginning to feel the added weight of her pregnancy in the form of a constant pull on her lower back. It was nothing she couldn't manage to live with, but the ache was definitely noticeable.

Her body was changing rapidly. She was slightly more than just "thick" now. Where before she'd felt as though she was just losing the shape of her waist, now it was obvious even to strangers that she had the beginnings of a baby bump.

This past week the changes in her body had begun to wreak havoc on her balance. She'd had to abandon anything with more than a moderate heel, which was a shame because it meant her favorite winter boots had, by necessity, been relegated to the back of her closet for the foreseeable future.

She looked down at her belly. It protruded just enough now that, even lying flat on her back, a tiny island of flesh near her belly button broke free of the water's surface. Supposedly, the baby was the size of a turnip right now, which she found amusing.

She wondered what Walt would think about that.

She'd tried not to let him intrude on her thoughts so much, especially not in conjunction with the baby when so much was still up in the air, but it was difficult not to let him. He seemed such a part of her thought process.

He was the voice in her head, whether she liked it or not.

A light tapping low in her abdomen, drew her attention away from thoughts of him.

It was very faint, like bubbles popping against the inside of her skin, and her heart quickened in response. She held perfectly still, willing it to happen again. Could it be the baby moving? Was that really what it was? She wasn't sure. She thought so, but…it could be gas bubbles. She _had_ eaten all those grapes. She glanced, suspiciously, at the half-eaten bowl of fruit. That's probably all it was, she decided, relaxing.

Then, just as she'd convinced herself she'd imagined the whole thing or, at the very least, misinterpreted the feeling, she felt it again. It was more insistent this time, less like bubbles popping and more like the frantic beating of a butterfly's wings. _Quickening_ , that's what all the books called it.

It was a perfectly fitting word for the odd, lovely sensation.

That was her baby.

She laughed out loud and then quickly brought her hand to her mouth, as though the sound might disturb the tiny person inside her womb. Her wet fingertips rested against the surprised "o" of her lips for several seconds before slipping down to gently cup the slight swell of her tummy.

"Hey you," she whispered.

 _Wow_ , she thought.

* * *

Vic slipped a long sleeved, black top over her head and tugged it down over her belly. The material was clingy, and paired with the stretchy material of her newly-acquired maternity jeans, her bump was very noticeable. Some days she felt like covering it up while she still could…like keeping it to herself for a little while longer, like not responding to comments like, _You and your husband must be so excited._ But today, she felt like letting the world in on her little secret. Today was her eighteen-week ultrasound, and she was finding out the sex of the baby. At least, Dr. Sanders had promised they would try. It was all dependent on the little peanut's level of cooperation.

She and Walt had talked on the telephone several more times over the past week, and she'd thought about mentioning the appointment to him, but had decided against it. She wasn't even sure they'd be able to see anything as far as the gender went, and maybe he wouldn't even want to know. He seemed generally concerned for her and the baby's well-being, but she didn't feel like it was fair to ask him to be anymore invested than he already was at this point…just in case.

She had a gut feeling that Walt was the father of her child. She'd only asked if he was sure about its paternity because of her odd choice to leave Durant without telling him about the baby, but maybe she'd just been upset, though, and scared. Maybe she would have told him later, if not for the accident. She felt too drawn to him to think there'd been anyone else in her life in that way, but she couldn't know for sure, and that fact kept her holding back, for now.

If only she could remember…

Putting the whole mess out of her mind for the time being and focusing on the task at hand, she ran a reassuring hand down over the firm bump of her abdomen and headed for the door.

* * *

"You didn't want anybody here with you today, Victoria?" her OB asked, kindly, as she smeared cold, blue gel onto Vic's abdomen. Normally, it was an ultrasound tech who performed such perfunctory exams, but due to her history with the accident and her head injury, her pregnancy had been followed very closely, though it had not been officially labeled as high risk.

She appreciated the extra care Dr. Sanders was taking. It made her feel a little less terrified about the whole thing.

A little.

"I just…want to do this on my own," she breathed. "My family is great, but they're a little much, ya know?"

Her doctor smiled. "Fair enough," she said, chuckling. "Any new memories since I saw you last?"

Vic smiled. "Yeah, actually. I, um…the baby's father came to see me, and after he left I remembered something about him." Vic didn't go into detail about her fears regarding the possibility that Walt wasn't the baby's father. It was too complicated to explain without going into more detail than she felt prepared to go into today.

The doctor paused her button-pushing on the ultrasound machine. " _Really?_ "

"Yeah," Vic affirmed. "He's gone back home now, but we've been in touch. I keep hoping that something more will come back to me, but…so far, nothing."

"Go ahead and lie back," Dr. Sanders said, motioning with the ultrasound wand.

Vic complied, suddenly feeling nervous.

"Relax, this is the fun part," Dr. Sanders chided. "You want to know the sex if we can determine it, right?"

"Yeah," Vic nodded. "I want something to look forward to with some small degree of certainty," she added, glibly.

"Maybe you should go back there for a while," Dr. Sanders suggested as she pressed the wand to Vic's bare abdomen.

"What?" Vic asked, confused.

"To Wyoming. That's home, right?" the older woman clarified.

"Oh, yes," Vic murmured, her eyes focused on the grainy images that appeared and disappeared and then reappeared again on the screen to her right. She was no expert, but she could make out an arm, a head, a profile that was there and then quickly gone.

"Maybe going back there and spending some time with him would jog your memory. I know you said your neurologist advocated following your normal routine, and if Wyoming was home before your accident…" she trailed off.

"But what about you?" Vic asked, surprised. "And my other doctors?"

"What? They don't have doctors in Wyoming?" Dr. Sanders laughed. "I know that your other doctors and I may feel familiar to you, and if you feel it best to stay put then you should do what makes you feel the most comfortable. But, Victoria, if you feel like you should be there…like being there would help you get your memories back, then it's a simple matter of finding new doctors and having your records transferred." She moved the wand a little lower and tilted it to a new angle. "I will say you should decide soon though because I don't want you traveling anymore after you hit your third trimester, okay?"

Vic nodded, taking in this new information. "When is that again?"

Dr. Sanders chuckled. "Twenty-eight weeks. So, you have a couple of months still." She angled the wand again. "There!" she exclaimed, triumphantly.

Vic tried to figure out what exactly she was looking at, but it just looked like a pair of legs to her. "I don't see anything."

"Exactly," Dr. Sanders grinned. "You should thank your daughter for being so cooperative."

"My d-…it's a girl?" Vic asked, breathless.

"It is definitely a girl," the doctor confirmed, smiling.

"Are you sure?" Vic whispered, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"Well, I mean, I can't be one hundred percent sure without an amnio, but I'd say I'm about ninety-nine percent sure. She really couldn't have positioned herself any better." The older woman paused, looking closely at Vic. "Are you okay? Did you have a preference?"

"No," Vic said, shaking her head. "I mean, yes, I'm fine. No, I didn't have a preference." She tore her eyes away from the screen and met Dr. Sanders' gaze. "I just can't believe it," she said, blinking rapidly to combat the sudden moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Well, believe it! Because in about five months, you're going to be a mama to a bouncing baby girl."

A smile played around Vic's lips.

"Shall we take some measurements and make sure she's growing okay in there?" Dr. Sanders asked.

Vic nodded and settled back against the exam table. She turned her attention back to the screen.

"Hey, baby girl," she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

_**a/n: I know it's been awhile, and this isn't a very long chapter (though hopefully you'll agree that the story progression is worth it), but I just had to post something to get me going again! I'm going to finish this, and I hope you're all still hanging in there with me!**_

Walt slammed the door to his office and crossed the width of the room in three angry strides before dropping, sullenly, into the chair behind his desk. He'd been calling Vic all day and hadn't heard a word in reply. He knew she'd had a check-up yesterday, and he'd been surprised when he hadn't heard from her by evening, but he'd given her the night, figuring she'd just gotten busy or fallen asleep. Now, however, it was going on twenty-four hours since her appointment, she was completely MIA, and he was losing his mind worrying about all of the things that could have happened to her.

 _Plus_ , he thought as he stared guiltily at the inside of his office door, _I've been a bear to get along with these past few weeks, and this morning I may have set some kind of record for myself_.

He was pretty sure he'd managed to piss off every single member of his staff, including Ruby, which was not an easy thing to do.

It wasn't entirely his fault. The last time he'd talked to Vic on the phone she'd reiterated how fine she was doing on her own, and how she truly didn't expect anything from him. That had _really_ irked him. She'd by God better expect a hell of a lot from him.

She deserved a lot more from people than she expected to receive. Especially him.

Why'd she have to be so damn stubborn, anyway?

A grudging part of him had to admit that her stubbornness was one of the things he usually found most endearing about her, but in this instance it drove him up the barn wall. He wanted to be there for her despite the small shadow of doubt that played in the back of his mind regarding the baby's paternity.

 _Are you sure this baby's yours?_

He knew she'd thrown the question out there in response to her own questionable actions after she'd found out about her pregnancy, not because she had any real reason to think there'd been anyone else in her life, but the unpleasant sense of doubt her words had stirred in him remained.

What a fucking mess.

He reached for his keys. He was getting nothing accomplished here, and it was already nearing four o'clock. No one was going to care if he left an hour early. "Ruby," he called through the closed door. "I'm heading home. Radio if you need me."

"Bye," he heard, noting how her usual sweet drawl was kept pointedly succinct _. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out_ , he heard in the ensuing silence, despite her being too much of a lady to actually voice the words. Ruby had a way of expressing her opinion loud and clear without having to say much at all.

He sighed. He owed her big time for the last few months. He owed them all, but Ruby more than most. She'd encouraged him in her quiet way, and settled for comfort when encouragement wasn't an option.

He knew the tension amongst his staff was his fault. He should've figured out this thing with Vic ages ago. He should have just been honest with himself and her after her divorce was final. He thought back to that day in the alley when she'd reached out to him. She'd laid herself bare that day, and he'd been an absolute chicken shit in return. He'd allowed his fears and uncertainties to overwhelm him, and he'd thrown her words back in her face as if he'd been oblivious to the feelings that had been growing between them for years. He still owed her an apology for that, when she could remember what he was talking about.

If she ever remembered. Damn it.

In his truck, Walt tossed his hat onto the passenger seat and shoved his fingers through his hair. Maybe he'd go for a drive before he went home. Sometimes the open road helped him relax. Flipping on the radio, he cranked the volume a little louder than normal and pulled out onto the two lane highway that made up the main drag. There was an old song by The Band playing, and he remembered, fondly, how his mother had loved this one. His lips moved silently, forming the familiar words.

 _They got your number, scared and running  
But I'm still waiting for the second coming of Ophelia  
Please come back home…_

Today the words had him thinking of a different woman in his life. Who was he kidding, what _didn't_ have him thinking of her these days? She was _all_ he thought about. He wondered how long he'd be able to keep this up. Living day to day like her not being here didn't matter, like everything in his life didn't seem less important without Vic to here to approve or disapprove of it. He'd told her that his life was none of her business, but he'd been full of shit.

She'd known it then. He knew it now.

For years, he'd been drawing her closer, his constant need to be near her making her a more and more significant part of his life. In the early days of what had become their unofficial partnership, he'd taken her on nearly every call, needed her expert opinion on practically every case. He'd called her for rides at all hours of the day and night, used her personal phone as his own whenever it suited him, he'd brought her into his home when she needed a safe place to stay, and he'd brought her into his arms, just as easily, when they'd both needed comfort after what happened out at Chance Gilbert's place. He'd kept her close, accepted all the support and adoration she'd had to offer, until one day he'd glanced over and the look in her eyes had asked him for something in return. Then, instead of giving her what he could, even though he feared it'd never be enough, he'd pushed her away, suddenly refusing to even be her friend, despite the fact that being his had very likely cost her her marriage.

He'd been backing away from her ever since, at least until she'd up and disappeared from his life. The way he'd treated her wasn't fair of him, and he knew it, but he'd accepted responsibility for his actions now, and he had to find a way to get them moving forward again. He had to get past his own anger though, because he knew that if and when she remembered, she was bound to have a fair amount of her own.

The problem was, though he had a lot of guilt about the way he'd handled himself with her, he also had this _anger_ toward her that he didn't know what to do with. He was still so mad at her for leaving the way she had, and because she didn't remember her actions that anger had nowhere to go, so he kept swallowing it down and swallowing it down. Now it sat, a smoldering fire in his belly, waiting to burn through everything in its path. He kept it banked by reminding himself of his own actions in the weeks following their night together.

He'd been shocked when he'd awakened to find her gone, and he'd been hurt, his feelings as well as his pride. He'd been backing away from her for so long, holding himself in check, and then when he'd finally allowed himself to just let go and give in to what he felt for her, what he'd been feeling for years, it'd hurt like hell to think that she regretted it.

He'd reacted out of that hurt and anger, and he'd given her the cold shoulder. In hindsight, he could see that she had been repentant. She'd tried to make an effort with him. She hadn't apologized, not that he'd ever given her the opportunity, but she had attempted to make things right, in her way. In the weeks following that fateful night, she had asked him to dinner, to have a beer after work, to talk. He had shut her down every time. He'd given her the silent treatment, which she'd deserved, but, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, he could see now how his actions might have played into her decision-making process when she'd realized she was pregnant.

Turning left toward the Big Horns, he sighed. Turns out they were both pretty shitty at this emotional stuff.

Around five o'clock Walt rolled slowly down the long gravel drive toward home, his tires kicking up a cloud of dirt in their wake. As he neared the house, he took note of an unfamiliar car in his driveway. The plates were local, but it was obviously a rental.

His heart picked up speed as he let the truck come to a slow stop next to the small, red compact. Seeing no one inside, his eyes shifted toward the house as he climbed out of his truck.

There she was.

His heart stuttered at the sight of her, sitting there on his front porch steps, her pale blonde hair lifting lightly on the late afternoon breeze. She smiled, looking nervous.

"Surprise," she said, rising carefully to her feet.

He moved forward quickly, ready to steady her, if needed. She managed fine on her own though, of course, her movements graceful despite her added girth. She was wearing blue jeans and a soft-looking green sweater with a pair of low-heeled boots. Her hair hung loosely down her back and she had her aviators pushed up on top of her head. Except for the obvious, she looked much like her old self. His eyes slid over her long, jeans-clad legs. Those had to be some sort maternity jeans, but that didn't detract at all from their effect on him. He didn't remember maternity clothes looking like _that_.

 _She's fucking gorgeous_ , he thought, coming to a sudden stop at the top of the porch steps. Words nearly failed him, but he finally managed, "I called a few times. I was worried when I didn't hear from you." It was less of an accusation and more of an attempt to explain his numerous calls and voicemails.

"Yeah, sorry about that," she offered. "I had a long weekend and just decided on a whim to come. I hope that's okay," she finished, her brows rising hopefully.

It was good to hear her voice. Here, in person. Really good.

"Of course. I'm," he paused, searching for words. "I'm glad you're here, Vic," he managed, thinking how strange it was that just the sight of her had temporarily banished any trace of the anger he'd been nursing just a short while ago.

She smiled at that and nodded. "Good. Me too," she said.

They stood on the front porch, gazing silently at each other. Oddly enough it wasn't awkward. It was just a moment of mutual taking-in, acceptance of a new reality.

 _Yep, we're both here. In Wyoming. In each other's company._

Vic looked away first. "You think we could go inside, Walt? It's a little chilly out here," she said, rubbing her hands together and moving toward the front door.

"Right," he nodded, snapping into action. His eyes fell to the small duffel bag sitting innocuously by the front door, and he glanced at her, questioningly.

This time, she kept her gaze purposefully on his.

"If you don't mind, I was kinda hoping I could stay here?" Her cheeks were pink but he couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or feeling the bite of the waning winter wind. "I don't really feel up to seeing anyone else just yet, and if I stay in town I'm going to run into people who know me."

Walt contemplated her words, taking note of the fact that she'd said _people who know me_ as opposed to _people that I know_. The subtle difference had his gut clenching. That, or the fact that she was here on his doorstep for the first time since…

"I can just stay over in Sheridan if having me here makes you uncomfortable," she offered, quickly, signaling that he'd remained silent just a bit too long.

"No, it's fine it's just," he hesitated, then finished, honestly. "You haven't been here since the night we—uh…"

Understanding slid into her eyes. "Oh."

Now she was definitely blushing.

"Yeah," he agreed, softly. Silence reigned for several seconds before he managed to snap himself out of the awkward moment he'd created. He picked up her bag and pressed a hand to the small of her back, urging her toward the door. "But of course you can stay here, Vic. I'm glad you decided to come."

She smiled at that and let him lead her inside.


End file.
